


It Always Comes In Threes

by Luna_Hart



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-03-02 20:44:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18818662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luna_Hart/pseuds/Luna_Hart
Summary: “Doesn’t sound like he wants to be found,” he pointed out, propping his chin up with a palm.“He’s one of ours.”“You think he still is, after everything that’s happened?” Bucky asked carefully.“You know, I said the same thing about you once,” Sam chuckled.Where Clint never had a wife or kids, doesn't go off on his own until after the events in Endgame, and it's Bucky who goes looking for him instead.AVENGERS ENDGAME SPOILERS





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> FINAL WARNING: AVENGERS ENDGAME SPOILERS

His hand was slipping.

Oh god, his hand was slipping. The tendons in his wrist and elbow screamed as he clutched his fingers tighter, in defiance of the leather that was slipping against leather.

“Damn you,” he snarled softly through clenched teeth.

He stretched his other hand down but the grapnel had been tethered to his hip and he couldn’t reach. The angle sent sharp pain shooting up his back and he latched onto the line with his free hand, unable to keep the pained grimace from his face.

She looked so calm.

He knew all her looks because he knew her better than anyone else. He’d been the one to find her after all. Defied the kill orders because he’d seen something behind the eyes that belonged to a Red Room trained assassin with a kill count triple to his.

He’d seen the professional side, the cold focus that would flood her eyes whenever they were in the field. That look was all he’d known for the first two years of being partnered with her. And then Budapest happened and sometime between debrief and the eighth shot of vodka downed in a shitty dive bar in Washington, Black Widow and Hawkeye became Nat and Clint.

He’d sat by her bedside for two days after she was airlifted from Iran with a bullet hole in her gut. That was the first time he’d seen her look vulnerable. Shaken. Scared. She’d told him about _him_. Told him how she knew he wasn’t supposed to really exist but that she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d been shot by the Window Solider. By the Russian ghost himself.

He knew what exasperation looked like in her eyes whenever he did something overly ridiculous. The long-suffering affection making her eyes roll back in her head so hard he’d tease they’d get stuck there if she wasn’t careful. He knew what she looked like when she was worried, the emotions smothered behind indifference or anger if he got injured doing something she considered stupid.

And then Loki happened.

He remembered what her eyes had looked like when he tried to kill her, forced to watch from the backseat as his body acted against his own will. Focus and determination warred with the terror that he might not give her a choice. That it might come down to her or him. He remembered the look in her eyes when he’d woken up. Shared pain and an understanding that ran deep. Now they both knew what it was like to be unmade.

He knew what she looked like gentle, when she’d find him screaming himself awake from a night terror. She’d sit beside him and card her fingers through his hair, singing Russian lullabies until the blue faded from behind his eyes and he could breathe again.

They weren’t a thing. Never had been, regardless of how many people at SHIELD assumed they were. Clint couldn’t love her like that. He’d known ever since he’d seen Wilbur the Strongman without a shirt on when he was a twelve year old circus brat. It was something he’d never told anyone, except for her. He’d never been able to keep a secret from her. Not for long anyways.

He did love her. He loved her like she was a part of him. Like she was his bow arm, or his eyes. Always keeping him on target. He knew she felt the same. For all she never said it out loud, she proclaimed it to the world anyways by wearing the little arrow necklace he’d gotten her as a joke for Christmas one year.

She always said love was for children. And maybe it was but neither of them really had a childhood. So maybe for them it didn’t count.

He knew every one of her looks and knew what they all meant. And right now she looked so fucking calm. Peaceful. Serene. Every single damn noun that could possibly explain the look in her eyes. Sad too, around the edges. But no less determined.

Clint hated the number three.

It might seem a little odd but he’d always hated it. Three was such an awkward number, whether it was the number of people in a room or pieces of food that required sharing. Three was also the number of words that seemed to have the habit of breaking him.

_“You listenin’, boy?” slurred harshly at him through gin-numbed lips._

_“You have heart,” spoken softly beside him as everything was washed out with blue._

“Let me go,” murmured to him gently but firmly.

“No,” he choked out, feeling his eyes starting to burn and sting. He barely recognized his own voice. He never had been as good at controlling his emotions as her. Right now he couldn’t even begin to try.

Then she smiled at him, a small sad knowing smile, and a fresh wave of fear rippled through his chest. Because she knew. Of course she knew. She always did. She knew him better than he did himself so she had to see that there was no way in hell he was going to let her go.

“Please, no.”

He’d never been above begging. Not for things that really mattered.

“It’s okay,” she murmured.

His fingers tightened reflexively, even as she slipped another inch. All his training, all control over his own body, went out the window. His breath was coming out all wrong, his heart hammering against his ribs. His vision was narrowed to a laser focus and all he could see was that calm look in her eyes.

“Please,” he whispered.

And then she fell.

She shoved herself back from the cliff, wrenching her wrist from his grasp. A cry tore from his throat and he kept reaching like he could stop her fall by sheer will alone. His voice sounded like muffled white noise, static and harsh as he watched the one truly good thing he had going in his life leave him.

He looked away just before she hit, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the grapnel she’d attached to him, because he couldn’t see that. He didn’t want this to be his last memory of her, her broken body burned into his mind.

But he made himself look back. She deserved that much. His vision blurred as he stared down at her. She was a tiny speck, lying next to the equally tiny red blossom that splattered out across the rock beside her. He couldn’t breathe. It was like Loki all over again, ice crawling through his chest and freezing the air in his lungs.

There was a white hot flash, a searing pain, and then he was kneeling in a shallow body of water, soaked and shaking with a glowing purple gemstone clutched in his palm.

He didn’t feel the trip back home, back to the Avenger’s compound. He didn’t feel his boots hit the ground, or feel the suit fold back from around his body. A small part of him was aware of the rest of the teams materializing around him. Heard their voices, their questions. Not that it really made sense. It was just background noise against the numb buzzing in his head.

“Did we get ‘em all?”

“Are you telling me this actually worked?”

He didn’t feel anything as his legs gave out but he heard the harsh metal clang the floor made when his knees hit it. He felt the rest of them turn to him, worry in their eyes. He couldn’t tell them. He didn’t have to. It’s not like they weren’t going to notice who was missing.

“Clint, where’s Nat?”

 

  
It hurt. God, it hurt so much. He stood stiffly, arms wrapped around himself. Listening to Stark ask if she had family, hearing Cap’s answer. Listening to Thor rail on about how they could just bring her back with the stones like it was just that simple. They didn’t get it.

“Can’t get her back,” he heard himself say. They all turned to him. Even if he didn’t look away from the lake, he could feel their eyes shift to him. “It can’t be undone,” he rasped. “It can’t.”

Thor argued, practically insulting him with quips about him not being able to understand it because space magic. Under any other circumstances, Clint would be able to understand that it was just the grief talking, too fresh and too painful. But as it was, he was barely keeping himself together. He didn’t have any room left for sympathy.

He argued back, temper flaring and volume rising until his eyes were burning and his hands were shaking and he was a few decibels away from shouting. The rest of the team were just watching and he hated them. He hated their composure. He hated them for thinking up this fucking harebrained in the first place. He hated for even thinking they could get her back.

He hated them for their hope.

“It was supposed to be me,” he confessed, voice breaking. “She sacrificed herself for that goddamn stone. She bet her life on it.” His molars creaked as he clenched his teeth, guilt making his chest tight. He just wished he could get his hands to stop fucking shaking.

He barely registered Banner flinging the bench across the pond with a guttural roar. He could barely listen to the man’s speech, saying we had to make it worth it. For her. It hurt too much to listen. He didn’t want to listen. He didn’t want to hear it.

The only thing he wanted was to find Thanos and rip him apart.

 

  
They fought and they won.

It had been gruesome to watch as the radiation ate its way up the doctor’s arm, burning the flesh black. But it had been worth it when portals opened and thousands of men and women poured through. And he tried not to feel bitter as he looked out over the battlefield and didn’t see that familiar flash of red hair. He knew he wouldn’t see it but hope is a cruel bitch and sneaks up when least expected.

And then they won. Stark pulled out a last Hail Mary and snapped the giant purple bastard and his armies away as simple as a wave washing away sand. The cost had been great and fatal, but Clint figured that this was the way the billionaire would want to go out. In a grand gesture of self sacrifice, saving the entire galaxy.

He went to the funeral. He owed Stark that much, at the very least for all the upgrades to his bow and gear. At the most, for the man never questioning his place on the team after New York. He stood stiffly near the back in a starchy black suit and watched as Stark's widow and daughter placed the memorial wreath in the lake. He’d never felt more like an intruder.

He managed not to flinch at the hand Cap clapped on his shoulder as he passed, following Rhodey, the kid, and his aunt back into the cabin. He avoided the worried look Banner threw his way, muttered half-hearted condolences to Pepper and tried not to flinch when she hugged him. She had that sympathetic look in her eyes and he tried not to hate her for it because he wasn’t that much of a scumbag. She’d just lost her husband after all.

And all he’d lost was the closest thing to family he’d ever had.

He didn’t go back inside the house. He couldn’t. He couldn’t handle other people’s grief when he could barely keep his own in check. So wandered down to the lake instead and stood beside the tire swing staring out across the water.

He wasn’t sure how long he was there before she found him. The flash of red in the corner of his eye wasn’t the right shade but it still hurt. She didn’t say anything and he was grateful for it. It was nice, having her there. He smiled, the corners bitter and sad but he smiled because they’d won.

They had won.

“I wish there was a way I could let her know that we won. That we did it,” he said, proud of himself that his voice only wobbled a little. He felt Wanda’s eyes on him and he met her gaze reluctantly. He saw nothing there but understanding. No sympathy, no bullshit pity. Just a simple understanding.

“She knows,” she said softly. “They both do.”

He knew she was just trying to comfort him but her words sent another shard of guilt slicing through his chest. She was suffering too. She’d lost just as much as him. Probably more in the long run. She’d lost her love. She’d lost her brother. Clint wrenched his mind away from that trail of thought. It was just another reminder of different time he’d failed. Another time he wasn’t strong enough, or fast enough.

He couldn’t let any of that show, so he slung an around around her shoulders and didn’t say anything else. He felt her wrap her arm around his waist, squeezing gently. She stayed with him a little longer before going back inside. He huffed a shaky breath and started walking along the lake edge. He wasn’t sure where he was going, he just started walking.

They had won.

So why did it feel like he was the one who lost?

He immediately cursed himself for thinking that. That wasn’t fair for him to do. Many people here had lost. Hell, Morgan was going to grow up without a father for Christ’s sake. He wasn’t the only one hurting. He was just a selfish fuck that didn’t know how to deal with it.

His tie suddenly felt like it was trying to strangle him. He wrestled it from around his neck, tucking it in his back pocket. He yanked the collar loose, scrubbing a hand roughly down his face.

What the fuck did he do now?

As he rounded a thick clump of bushes, he spotting a lone figure sitting near a willow by the edge of the water. It struck him in that moment that maybe he wasn’t the only one who felt like an intruder today.

The Soldier, James, Barnes, Bucky, whatever the fuck he was calling himself these days, sat on the grass with no concern for the stains his pants were probably getting. His dark hair feel forward, hiding his face. He was so still that he could have been a statue.

Clint swallowed thickly. He moved to take a step towards the other man but hesitated. He really didn’t know him that well. Or at all. Their past interactions had been brief at best.

 

  
_“Cool arm, Robocop,” he said as he slide his quiver into place with a snap. Barnes eyes snapped over to meet his, wary and confused. Clint just grinned, lopsided and showing teeth as he strapped on his gauntlets._

_“Nice antique,” Barnes drawled after a moment. “And they call me old fashioned.”_

_Clint spluttered at that, which pulled a soft crooked smile from the dark haired man’s lips. It was small and gone in an instant but it had been there. So the Winter Soldier wasn’t that much of a monster after all. He just looked like a man to Clint. Maybe this was a worthy cause beyond just answering Cap’s call._

_“Clint Barton,” he said, holding out his left hand._

_He did it for a couple reasons, one being that he was left handed and two being that he wanted to make a point. He wasn’t as unobservant as he seemed, or pretended to be. The look of open shock in the former assassin’s eyes was proof enough. Slowly and so very carefully, Barnes took his hand. The metal felt cold against Clint’s skin, the plates shifting slightly against his palm._

_“Bucky Barnes,” he said, a hint of a Brooklyn drawl sneaking through. “You must be the other bird guy.”_

 

  
And that was it. Their only interaction before shit went down and he was getting his ass handed to him by Natasha on the tarmac. The memory was bittersweet and made something well up in his throat, tightening it until he could barely swallow.

He scrubbed a hand across his stinging eyes, cursing silently. Fuck this. Fuck feeling like this. He was losing it. Maybe Nat had been right after all. Maybe love was for children. It could feel wonderful in the moment but in the end, it didn’t do anything other than get you hurt.

His hands began to shake, so he clenched them into fists. His fingernails bit deep into his palms, the pain helping ground him. His jaw ached, the muscles twitching from clenching. In the distance, he saw Barnes turn towards him. Their eyes met. Clint looked away first. He didn’t want to talk to Barnes. He didn’t want to talk to anyone. He didn’t want anything. Not anymore.

He just wanted to be…nothing.

And then, not unlike the snap, everything changed. All that pain and guilt turned inwards and then…nothing. Ice crept into his heart and stayed, numbing him all over.

He turned away from the lake and the former assassin and made his way back towards the cabin. He didn’t stop, ignoring Cap’s calls from the porch as he got into the car he’d rented and reversed hard out of the driveway, tires spitting gravel.

 

******************************************

 

Bucky sat by the edge of the lake, hands still tucked into his pockets. They’d been in his pockets all afternoon. He still didn’t know why he was here. This was Tony Stark’s funeral. He had no place or business here. And yet Steve had insisted. Everyone had, even Pepper who he hadn’t even met until the aftermath of the battle.

 

_A metal vice wrapped around his throat, pulling him back against the solid armour. His hands scrabbled for purchase against the smooth plates, just barely stopping his air being cut off._

_“Do you even remember them?”_

_The voice was rasped through speakers, pain and rage thick through the man’s voice. It brought back memories that he didn’t want. Flashes of blood and screaming and car engines on fire._

_“I remember all of them.”_

 

Bucky closed his eyes against the memory. He’d never gotten the chance to apologize. The world had ended before he’d gotten the chance and then Stark had died. Not that apologizing would ever have been enough. There was nothing he could have done. But he would have liked the chance to try. Now it was too late.

The service had been lovely but once every one started filing back into the cabin, he couldn’t bring himself to join. He made sure Steve was inside before slipping away, out towards the lake. He found a spot, next to a large willow, and just sat. It was peaceful. For the first time since being brought back into existence, he felt like he could breathe.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting there when he felt more than heard someone behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to find the archer, Barton if he recalled correctly, on the other side of the tree. Just watching him. The tension that radiated from the man was almost palpable.

Their eyes met and the anguish briefly reflected in the blonde man’s eyes cut Bucky to the core. It was gone in a blink, replaced by…nothing. Numbness. It was the only way Bucky could describe it, reminded him far too much of the soldier. It sent a chill down his spine.

And then the archer was gone, striding back towards the house. A moment later, a car roared down the road, taking the turn at the end of the drive far too fast.

Bucky didn’t remember Natasha. Not really. Not like he knew he should. He had this nagging feeling that they had history but those were memories he hadn’t recovered yet. But he’d seen the tole her death had had on Steve, on everyone. He just hadn’t seen what it had done to Barton.

Until now.

 

3 YEARS LATER

It had been a long adjustment period as the Avengers reassembled in the wake of Stark’s death, Steve’s retirement, and Barton’s disappearance. Sam had stepped up admirably after being handed the shield. It was a lot of responsibility but he carried it well. It had been awkward, at first. Sam didn’t think he deserved it, which was why he was the perfect choice. But he kept asking if Bucky was okay with it, if he was sure. It finally got to the point where Bucky had to flip Sam on his ass to get it through the man’s thick head.

Bucky didn’t want the shield. Regardless of Sam’s assistance that he was more than worthy of the title, he knew he wasn’t. Not after everything he’d done. He knew that he hadn’t been in control. He’d had that control taken from him. There hadn’t been anything he could have done to stop it.

But he still did it.

It was his hands that did it. There was a lot of blood on them, blood that wasn’t going to wash clean in a hurry. The idea of picking up the shield, staining it and Steve’s legacy with that blood…Bucky couldn’t do it.

As it was, Sam had made sure to carve out an important place for him in the new Avengers. He’d gone to battle for him, fighting the government factions who wanted to lock him away as a war criminal to the news crews parking outside the walls trying to dig into his sordid past. Pepper had helped too and together they got him a full pardon.

He’d even been awarded the Prisoner of War Medal. The worlds longest surviving prisoner of war. What a joke. At least Pepper convinced the army just to mail it, something he had no idea how she managed but would always been grateful for.

The case sat in his sock drawer, unopened.

He didn’t deserve it. The guilt of everything Steve had done to find him, to bring him home, still weighed heavy. Some days it was so heavy Bucky could barely drag himself from bed. But he did because if he didn’t, everything Steve had sacrificed would be for nothing.

Today was an okay day. He really didn’t have that many really good days, but the okay days were finally outweighing the bad and Bucky was okay with that.

A bad day was him waking up in the middle of the night with ice in his throat and the bedspreads in tatters under his metal hand. Bad days sat like a weight behind Bucky’s eyes and required six cups of coffee before he could even contemplate leaving his suite, regardless that the caffeine didn’t really effect his heightened metabolism. He knew it was completely psychosomatic. And he didn’t give a shit because a bad day was when he lost time, snapping back to the present soaked through with sweat and unable to stop trembling.

And his therapist said he was improving.

No, today was one of those days where Bucky needed only two cups of coffee and about an hour of punching things before he felt human. Or at least as human as he was capable of.

Regardless, today was an okay day and Bucky was definitely not lurking in the hallway listening to Sam debrief with Rhodes, Okoye, and Lange via Holobox. It was mostly standard reports, nothing out of the ordinary. The world had been scrambling to recover in the wake of Thanos’ defeat. The housing crisis alone when half the population was suddenly snapped back into existence was extraordinary but finally the world was beginning to balance out.

One by one all the holograms winked out until only Rhodes was left. Bucky narrowed his eyes as the man on the holoscreen seemed to hesitate. “What is it, Rhodes?” Sam asked distractedly, shuffling through the stacks of reports on his desk.

“I’m in Mexico,” the other man said, reluctance and something else laced heavy through his words.

“I’m aware,” Sam said patiently, still not looking up from the papers in his hands. Bucky waited, arms crossed over his chest. He felt a little guilty. After all, he hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. Okay, he definitely did mean to eavesdrop but that hadn’t been his initial intention.

“The federales found a room filled with bodies. Looks like a bunch of cartel guys. Never even had the chance to get their guns off.”

“It’s probably a rival gang,” Sam said dismissively but Bucky noticed the way the man’s hands went still. He watched the tension creep across those broad shoulders, settling like a dark cape. It was subtle, but he’d been working closely with the man for the last three years. He knew his tells.

“Except it isn’t.”

Sam put down the papers very carefully. “You think it’s Barton?” he asked quietly. Bucky’s ears perked up at the mention of the archer. No one had heard anything from the man since Stark’s funeral. He had dropped completely off the grid. Wanda had been beside herself. Then six months later, bodies started appearing. Drug dealers, slavers, cartel members, warlords. All over the world. The murders were brutal, some bordering on cruel.

“It’s definitely him,” Rhodes said worriedly. “Sam, what he’s done here, what he’s been doing for the last few years…I mean, the scene that he left…” The man trailed off, something haunted in his eyes. Whatever he had seen, whatever Barton had left behind, clearly had shaken him. “I gotta tell you, there’s a part of me that doesn’t even want to find him.”

Bucky saw more than heard Sam sigh. “Lemme know when you find out where he’s headed next. Maybe we can head him off this time.”

“Sam…” Rhodes tried.

“Rhodey,” the other man interrupted. Bucky knew Sam wouldn’t beg but this was the closest he’d ever heard the man come to doing just that. “She’d want us to try,” he added, so quietly that Bucky almost missed it.

“Okay,” Rhodes said softly, something painful flickering across his face. The two men shared a nod and then Rhodes’ image disappeared. Wilson planted his hands on the desk, hunching in on himself.

“I assume you heard all that?”

Bucky grimaced, accepting being caught out as he stepped fully into the man’s office. “How’d you feel about a little field trip?” Sam asked, eyes tracking his movement as Bucky crossed over to flop down into one of the chairs in front of the desk.

Bucky sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Doesn’t sound like he wants to be found,” he pointed out, propping his chin up with a palm.

“Since when has that ever stopped us?” Sam grumbled as he took a seat as well. He looked tired. He didn’t show it in the field, or around the others. But here and now, in the safety of these four walls with only Bucky’s eyes as witness, he looked so tired. “He’s one of ours.”

“You think he still is, after everything that’s happened?” Bucky asked carefully. He didn’t know Barton, didn’t have a baseline for comparison. But if everything he had heard, and based on the others reactions, this was far left of the archer’s usual operations. He was worried of how Wilson might take that but the last thing he expected was for the man to laugh.

“You know, I said the same thing about you once,” Sam chuckled. “And now look at us. If someone had told me back then I’d be working alongside the Terminator willingly?”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “Alright, birdbrain. You’ve made your point.” Sam chuckled again, going back to the reports. Bucky stayed seated, fiddling with his metallic fingers. The feelings of the new vibranium arm were odd, even after all these years. Far more tactile sensations than the old one HYDRA gave him. He didn’t really get what Shuri had called ‘phantom pains’ anymore, which was a plus.

“Why me though?” he asked curiously.

Sam didn’t answer right away. He stared down at the reports but Bucky could tell he wasn’t reading them anymore. More like gathering his thoughts. “You read his file?” he asked, far too nonchalantly.

Bucky had read the man’s file, after he disappeared and Wanda had been desperate to find him. He’d grown closer with the girl after the end of the world. He’d hoped that maybe there might be something in the archer’s past that could help them find him.

He could guess what Sam was angling at. He’d read about Loki, about what Barton had been forced to do. They had common ground, if being brainwashed and forced to kill innocent people could be considered common ground.

“I don’t know him,” Bucky said softly.

“Neither do I. Only person left who really does is Wanda and she’s off planet.” He shook his head with a huffed chuckle. “Never gonna get used to saying that.”

“But I don’t know him,” Bucky insisted again.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the archer. The short interaction he’d had with the man at the airport before everything sideways was branded into his memory. The way the man had offered his _left_ _hand_ , not even flinching away from the Nazi weapon that masqueraded as Bucky’s arm. The cocky smirk, the quippy one-liners over comms, the absolutely lethal set of abilities the man clearly wielded. He remembered thinking that this was someone he’d like to get to know better.

“Sometimes that’s better,” Sam replied evenly. “Sometimes it’s easier to listen to a stranger rather than a friend.”

“Your therapist is showing,” Bucky drawled.

“Alright, Red October, listen-." 

“Sam, Secretary Hill is on the line. And she’s being particularly… insistent,” came the distinctive Irish voice lilting through the air.

“Thanks FRIDAY,” Sam sighed. He threw a look at Bucky, who took it as his cue to leave.

He’d planned to just walk out but as he reached the door, something stopped him. “Hey Sam?” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. Sam raised an eyebrow, hand hovering over the console’s flashing light. “Lemme know when you find him?” he asked, as casually as he could.

The corner of Sam’s mouth twitched with a smothered smile, the relief in his eyes making Bucky a little uncomfortable. Sam nodded and Bucky slipped out of the office before he said something to embarrass himself. He most certainly didn’t jump when the door behind him slid shut with a soft hiss. Clearly, there would be no more eavesdropping today.

 

  
2 MONTHS LATER

James was sitting on the roof, crosslegged and barefoot with a mug of coffee in his hands, when the call came in.

It was one of the bad days. Not one of the really bad ones, but not one of the okay ones either. He’d woke up before the sun, sweat-soaked hair sticking uncomfortably to the back of his neck as his heart hammered in his chest. He got out of bed on shaky legs and turned the coffee maker on. The second it finished he poured himself the biggest mug he had and took himself up to the roof to watch the sunrise.

He was perched on the very edge of the roof, watching the sun just start to break the tree line, when that disembodied voice spoke his name. “Sergeant Barnes, your presence is requested in the library.”

“What is it, Friday?” he asked with a sigh. He really didn’t wanna talk to anyone right now. Or see anyone for that matter. Especially not if it was Sam. The man always seemed to know when he’d had a bad night.

“Sir, we’ve located Agent Barton.”

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

It was like chasing a ghost, following only dead bodies, rumours, and false trails. Bucky wondered if this was what it had been like for Steve when he was chasing the ghost of his best friend. It was an unpleasant thought and he pushed it aside. He shrugged his hood further over his face against the rain, cursing Sam in six different languages.

He turned a corner, wandering further into the rougher areas of the city. Multicoloured signs and lights danced neon rainbows across the wet sidewalks, reflecting off the metallic doors of shops now long closed. Tokyo was a beautiful city in its own urban way.

He took another turn, following a tip about a Yakuza safehouse hidden above a gambling den. Gunfire suddenly rattled out sharply in the distance. His head snapped up, listening to soft sounds of screaming and shattering glass. Then everyone went quiet, broken only by the rain. Bucky wasn’t sure which was more unsettling, the gunshots or the silence, but set off towards the sound anyways. Or now, lack of sound.

He arrived just in time to see a hooded figure plunge a sword through another’s chest. His brain supplied him with a name. Akihiko, a Yakuza operative. He could hear the man’s last rattling breath, exhaled through blood and metal. The sword was pulled free with a swift yank and he slumped to the ground.

Bucky stepped closer as the assassin wipe the blade against his bicep with sharp, deliberate moves. Even though Bucky moved silently, the hooded figure still tensed. Bucky stopped a few feet away, not wanting to crowd the man.

Slowly and very deliberately, the man reached up a hand to push back his hood. Familiar sandy blonde hair, now shaved close on the sides, was instantly slicked flat by the rain. The mask followed suit a moment later. It felt from limp fingers, landing on the legs of the dead man sprawled on the ground.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Bucky swallowed thickly. He reached up, pushing back his own hood. The rain was relentless, soaking his collar and sticking his hair to his cheeks. He eyed the other man, noting the tension that lay heavy across those broad shoulders. The sword that was clutched tightly in the man’s left hand.

“Neither should you,” he replied.

The man tilted his head up into the rain, shoulders twitching as he seemed to take a shaky breath. And then he turned. Blue eyes met blue.

Bucky barely recognized him.

This wasn’t the cocky, smirking archer he’d met before the airplane hanger. That playful mischief had been replaced with something that burned hot and angry. Everything about the man was sharper, honed to a knifes-edge and wound tripwire tight. He’d known Barton was dangerous, but this man standing in front of him was deadly in a whole different way.

Words like unpredictable floated through his head. Unhinged. Reckless. Nothing to lose.

“You’re not an easy man to find,” he settled on.

Barton’s expression didn’t even flicker. He just stared back at Bucky with cold eyes. A chill ran up Bucky’s spine. He couldn’t tell if it was from the rain that was sneaking down his shirt or the absolutely lost expression that flickered in the blonde man’s eyes before anger hid it away again. “What are you doing here, Barnes?” he asked, voice rough and gravelly.

“Looking for you,” Bucky answered simply, silently praying he wasn’t going to say the wrong thing. This was why he’d questioned Sam for sending him. He was so far out of his depth with this sort of thing. Hell, he could barely deal with his own issues let alone help the archer deal with his.

Sirens in the distance broke the stalemate, wailing shrilly and growing steadily louder. Barton’s eyes flicked past Bucky’s shoulder. “You better go,” he stated flatly. He snatched up the mask and moved a little ways up the street. He bent to snatch a fancy looking sheath from the ground and slide the sword inside.

“Come with me,” Bucky said, taking a few steps to closer to the former SHIELD archer. “It’s been years, Barton,” he continued. “We’ve been worried. Wanda especially—.”

“She’s better off,” the man interrupted. “You all are.”

“Self-depreciating now too?” Bucky drawled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Bit cliche don’t yah think?” Barton’s cheek twitched but he didn’t retort. No witty banter, no glib remark. Just silence. That set off more alarm bells in Bucky’s head than the dead body lying on the cement.

The sirens were growing louder. Bucky glanced behind him, seeing the police lights play softly on the buildings a few blocks away. “There’s nothing left for me there,” he heard Barton say. Bucky thought back to all the people back home looking for the archer.

Wanda, who had been near inconsolable for weeks after Barton disappeared, thinking she’d lost another brother. Sam and Rhodes, who hadn’t stopped looking for the man for the past three years. Pepper and Hill, who promised any and all resources to help bring him home.

“You’re wrong.”

Barton froze. He glanced back over his shoulder, eyes wild and broken as his emotionless mask began to splinter.

The sirens wailed loudly, the lights from the police cars flickering off Barton’s face. Bucky could hear the tired squealing on the damp concrete. They were really close now. Barton seemed to know it too. His mask was firmly back in place, emotionless and smooth. His eyes flicked past Bucky’s shoulder as he flipped his hood up.

“You better keep up,” was all he said before darting away down a side alley.

 

It was not a walk in the park, following the archer through the alleys of Tokyo. The archer was fast and extremely nimble, scrambling up over rooftops and walls like a goddamn squirrel. Part of Bucky wondered if the man was trying to lose him. As it was, he was soaked through and grumpy by the time they reached whatever hole in the wall Barton was using as a hideaway these days.

It was a small corner studio in the warehouse district. It looked out over the docks and smelled vaguely like fish. Bucky had to slip through a window barely wide enough for his shoulders because apparently the archer had something against doors.

The room wasn’t very big and was very lacking in furniture. There was a threadbare mattress shoved in one corner, a sleeping bag tossed haphazardly across it. There was a small table and two rickety chairs next to the small galley-style kitchen. A door in the far wall lead to what Bucky assumed was a bathroom.

Barton continued to ignored him. Bucky stood there dripping on the warped floor and watched the other man strip off his armour. The sword was first, still in its sheath, then the gauntlets and various other gadgets were placed methodically on the table. The vest was next, then the jacket, tossed over the back of a chair.

Barton didn’t even glance at him as he strode across to the kitchen, puttered around a bit with a sketchy looking coffee machine, and came back without his boots.

Now that the man was facing him, Bucky could see the massive tattoo that covered the entirety of Barton’s left arm. The ghostly skull wrapped in samurai armour seemed to glare at him across the distance. Bucky wondered if the man had it before or if he’d gotten it sometime in the last three years.

“You want coffee?” Barton asked out of the blue.

“It’s…three in the morning.”

“So?” was the immediate response.

“I…yeah, okay.”

Twelve minutes later he was sitting on a squeaky chair with a chipped mug full of black sludge that could have doubled as jet fuel in an emergency. Across from him sat a very wary assassin. Everything about the man was on edge. He looked relaxed, slumped back in the chair with his legs splayed, but it was all a facade. Bucky could see it in the archer’s eyes.

The man hadn’t said anything else since making the coffee but Bucky didn’t let that or the steely gaze the blonde was trying to drill through his skull bother him. He kept his peace and just sipped his coffee. No one on this planet could out-brood him.

He made it through half of the mug before Barton broke.

“The fuck you doing in Tokyo?”

“I told you already,” he replied, setting down his mug carefully. Barton narrowed his eyes.

“I call bullshit.”

“Whatever man,” Bucky sighed, kicking off his boots because he couldn’t stand the way his socks were squelching around inside. Barton’s eyes flicked down, tracking the movement.

“Don’t get comfy, you not staying long,” the archer stated flatly.

“You kicking me out already? I just got here.” His tone might have been mild but he put more than a little of the Solider into his gaze; enough to say ‘just try it’.

Barton’s entire body went tense. Outwardly he didn’t seem to move but Bucky could feel it ripple through his body. Steel flooded into the archer’s eyes and his fingers clutched reflexively around the mug; identifying the closest weapon.

Bucky huffed a deep breath. He was so far out of his depth here that it had stopped being funny, looped back around and was now funny again. “What the hell are you doing here, Barton?” he asked.

“Think I asked you first, Sarge,” Barton said stiffly. “I mean, this isn’t exactly Brooklyn.”

“Think I answered that already.”

Barton huffed, something between a snort and a chuckle. He downed the last of his coffee before stalking back into the kitchen. Bucky stifled a sigh of his own. This was not going well. “You got any food in this shit hole?” he called out, making Barton pause.

“What do I look like, Martha fucking Stewart?” Barton grumbled, pouring himself the last of the coffee.

“You look like shit,” Bucky answered honestly.

Barton flinched. He smothered it quickly, but couldn’t stop it from flickering across his face before Bucky saw it. “Fuck you,” he retorted but Bucky could tell his heart wasn’t in it. He really did look like shit. Deep circles bruised under the man’s eyes. He clearly wasn’t sleeping, or if he was it was nowhere near enough. The man was running on fumes.

“Come on,” he said, sliding his feet back into his boots with a grimace. “I’m hungry. There’s a twenty-four hour ramen place nearby.” Barton narrowed his eyes, glaring at him over his coffee mug.

“You’re buying,” he finally said, downing the last of the coffee.

 

  
“Picture’d last longer,” Barton drawled around a mouthful of noodles. Bucky flushed, embarrassed at getting caught sneaking sidelong glances at the blonde man. “How’d you know ‘bout this place?” the blonde asked, gesturing to the little outside bar they were sitting at, hiding from the rain under a faded awing.

“Saw it during recon,” Bucky said with a shrug, twirling his chopsticks around the bowl idly. “Never had ramen before. Figured I might as well try it while I’m here,” he added, poking at a piece of egg. Barton’s eyebrows disappeared into his hair. “What?” Bucky said defensively, refusing to fidget under the man’s stare.

“The fuck have you been doing the last three years if you haven’t tried ramen?”

Bucky snorted. “Hey, I’ve had almost a hundred years worth of history to catch up on,” he protested.

“And ramen should have been the third thing on the list, after cronuts and the internet,” Barton fired back, almost sounding like the archer Bucky had met before Siberia.

“What’s a cronut?”

“You’re killing me, Barnes,” Barton said, a glimmer of who the man really was, buried under all the pain and guilt, slipping through. It disappeared as quickly as it had came. “So I hear Steve retired,” he said, manner nonchalant but the tone was careful.

Bucky swallowed, forcing down the swirl of emotions that were always associated with Steve. He was happy for him. He’d sacrificed so much, suffered and lost so much. He was long due to have the life he should have had, with the woman he loved. Bucky just had to deal with navigating the rest of his life without him, something he’d been studiously avoiding for the past three years. Much to his therapist’s annoyance. And don’t get him started on Sam.

“Yeah,” was all he said.

Barton gave him a look like he could see straight past the bullshit but Bucky ignored it. This wasn’t about him. “You talk to Wanda at all?” he asked, even though he knew the answer. Barton went very still. “She’s been worried abou—.”

“Don’t,” the blonde growled warningly.

“Don’t what?”

Before Clint could answer, red and blue lights flashed across their backs as two police cars crept slowly down the street. He felt something about the archer go very still, even though outwardly he just went back to his soup like it was the only thing holding his focus. Bucky did the same, keeping his head tucked into his hood until the lights flickered past and disappeared.

Bucky felt like he blinked and Barton was gone. Fuck, the man was fast.

He didn’t bother trying to find the archer, or attempt to follow him. He just needed to beat him back to his safe house. No way Barton was gonna give up all his gear that easily.

His boots barely hit the fire escape next to the safe house before someone else’s boot was flying at his chest. He caught it and twisted, sweeping the man’s supporting leg out from under him. Barton hit the grate with a grunt. The foot was yanked from Bucky’s grip then a military issue heel clipped him hard under the chin. His head snapped back, giving Barton enough time to flip himself back onto his feet.

A flurry of blows and blocks ended with Barton in a headlock.

“Barton stop,” Bucky hissed against the shell of the other man’s ear. A snarl was the only response he got before he was shoved backwards. His back hit the railing hard, digging the thin metal into his kidneys.

A sharp elbow to the gut surprised him and the archer nimbly twisted himself free. A right hook quickly followed and Bucky caught with his left. He was careful, well aware that any damage to the archer’s hands could be catastrophic. It was embarrassingly easy. He should have realized the punch was just a distraction.

Quick as a snake Barton pivoted, his other hand flying forward. Something sharp stabbed into the joining of flesh and metal in Bucky’s armpit. He gasped, a strange numb kind of pain stabbing deep as the barb bit into scar tissue. Then his whole body convulsed as volts of electricity crackled through him.

The vibranium sparked as his legs gave out and he tumbled down the fire escape stairs, crashing into a twisted heap on the landing below. The electricity finally stopped, leaving him gasping as his muscles twitched. The volts had been nowhere near as strong as the chair, but it brought back the memories rushing back all the same.

Phantom pains flickered through his head. His left hand clenched and spasmed, pushing back against the sensations that he was slipping away, that he was loosing himself. He clenched his eyes, breathing through the growing panic that wrapped around his chest like a vice.

Carefully, he reached under his arm and yanked the little device free. He pocketed it, knowing better than to leave any evidence behind, and he got to his feet. He could feel the Soldier’s training wrapping around him like a cloak, sharpening his focus.

Now he was pissed.

Barton was geared up and sneaking out a back window when Bucky slipped into the apartment. He crossed the room in three strides, grabbed the archer by the scruff of the neck, and flung him across the room.

The blonde hit the wall with a grunt, landing far more gracefully than Bucky would have thought possible. “Get outta my way, Barnes,” the man snarled, sounding a little winded. Bucky didn’t answer with anything more than a steely glare. Barton shifted, clearly getting agitated. His hand shifted to his belt but Bucky moved first.

He snatched up his previously abandoned mug and whipped it at Barton’s head. The blonde ducked it easily, which he expected. It was enough of a distraction for Bucky to close the distance.

Barton put in a good effort. He was well trained and almost inhumanly fast but Bucky was fighting differently now. Before long, Barton’s head was bouncing off the wall, hard. He slumped to the ground, not fully unconscious but hardcore dazed. He struggled to get to his feet, but his arms gave out and he slumped back to the floor.

Like a switch the adrenaline drained from Bucky’s body, leaving him shaking as he stared down at the now unconscious archer. “Fuck.”

 

  
Sam picked up on the second ring. “You find him?”

“Yeah.”

“Where is he now?”

“Cuffed to the radiator thirty two feet to my left.”

“The fuck, Barnes. You were just supposed to talk to him—.”

“I know,” Bucky snapped.

It suddenly hit him that it was really bad for his mental state to be sitting in a chair right now. He could practically feel the steel bands snapping down around his biceps and wrists. He jumped to his feet, striding over to the window and looked out over the dark water to the sparkling lights of the city beyond. “There were…complications.”

“Complications that required you to cuff him to a goddamn radiator?!”

“Yes, fucking complications!” he snarled, pinching the bridge of his nose as he tried to regulate his breathing. Agitation and bad memories were crawling under his skin like snakes. He was on the edge, he knew he was. There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“Where’s your head at?”

“I’m fine,” Bucky insisted, crossing his left arm over his chest to dig his fingertips into his right bicep. He had been told pressure could be grounding.

“No you’re not. Call your therapist,” the other man replied immediately.

“Sam, I don’t need t—.”

“Call your therapist.”

“What time is it even over there? I’m not gonna—.”

“Call. Him.”

Bucky huffed a breath, knowing this wasn’t an argument he was gonna win. “Fine,” he grumbled. “How’s everything stateside?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation back to safer ground.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Sam replied, seeing right through Bucky as always. There was a pause, followed by an unintelligible murmuring as Sam clearly spoke to someone else. “Sorry, I gotta go. You need anything?”

“We’ll be fine,” Bucky said with a sigh.

“You gonna call Ryan or are you just gonna say you are and then go back to brooding murderously as soon as I hang up?”

That pulled a smirk from him. “Guess you’ll never know,” he snarked.

“Always a pain in my ass, Barnes,” Sam grumbled and then hung up before Bucky could make a retort. He huffed a chuckle, moving to put his phone back in his pocket when it vibrated. A text notification from Sam; _Call him._

Bucky stared at those two words for a long time, chewing on his lip nervously. He threw a glance over to where Barton was still unconscious, one wrist attached to the radiator with a thick metal cuff. He hesitated, then scrolled through his contacts until he found the name he was looking for. Four rings and then a man picked up, voice calm and pleasant.

“Hi Bucky, how are you doing?”

Bucky sucked in a shaky breath, flexing the fingers of his left hand uneasily. “Not great,” he settled on, wishing his voice didn’t sound so rough. He knew Ryan wouldn’t judge. He’d been seeing the man for two years now. He knew most of it all, everything that HYDRA had done, and yet he’d never shown an ounce of pity. That’s why Bucky had stuck it out with the man, instead of adding him to the large pile of other therapists that ‘hadn’t worked out’, as Sam so tactfully put it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Ryan. Bucky swallowed thickly, the growing lump in his throat rolling painfully.

“Yeah, I think I do.”

  
***********************************

  
Clint crawled back to consciousness extremely unwillingly. There’s no pain when you're unconscious. And now his head was pounding and his shoulder and wrist ached fiercely. He kept his body lax, squinting through his eyelashes as he tried to figure out his situation.

He was still in his safe house. He was lying on the floor, one wrist cuffed to something behind him. He was facing the kitchenette, where Barnes was currently leaning against the window talking with someone on the phone.

Shit.

He closed his eyes again, forcing his body to relax. His weapons had been stripped as well as his gauntlets but Barnes hadn’t found everything. It was easy to free the lock pick tucked away in a little stitched compartment in his sleeve.

“I wouldn’t.”

Clint’s eyes snapped open, meeting Barnes’ gaze from his perch in the kitchen. The dark haired man murmured something into the phone before hanging up. Then the guy just stood there, watching like he was daring Clint to try.

Well, fuck him. Fuck him and his stupid jawline and stupid hair and stupid ninja skills. Fuck him for coming here when all Clint wanted was to be left alone, to slip through the cracks in the world and disappear.

The second the slender piece of metal touched the inside of the cuff’s locking mechanism, there was a nasty shock and his whole arm went numb. “Fuck!” he snapped, twisting around in an attempt to shake the pins and needles that prickled from shoulder to wrist.

“Stings, don’t it?”

Yep, officially fuck this guy.

“Your nose is all outta joint because of that?” Clint snarked, pushing himself up into a sitting position. “Don’t tell me the big bad White Wolf can’t handle a little shock.” Barnes twitched, something haunted flickering through his eyes. Clint figured that a guy who’d had his brain scrambled by a Nazi Tesla coil was allowed to be a little pissed given the situation. He still refused to feel bad. He was too angry and he still couldn’t feel his fingers. Asshole.

“I’m sorry about your head,” Barnes said out of nowhere. He looked a little chagrined. The man was clearly trying to take the higher road. And clearly, Clint was going to hold a grudge longer than that.

“Yeah, you’ve got issues,” he muttered uncharitably.

Surprisingly, the man didn’t seem to take offence. Instead he huffed, something rueful tugging at his lips. “Yeah,” Barnes drawled. “So my therapist tells me.”

Clint blinked. Of all the responses and retorts, that one was at the bottom of the list. Hell, it wasn’t even on the list. He swallowed back something bitter, squashing the urge to fidget. So Robocop had a shrink. Whatever. Clint had been through his fair share; when he’d been recruited (cough, blackmailed, cough) into joining SHIELD, after Budapest, after Moldova.

After New York.

Not liked any of it helped. There was a problem with putting someone trained in espionage in therapy. Even someone as inept at undercover work as Clint had no issues fooling the tweedy shrinks they’d forced him to see. It’s just a matter of saying the right things, shedding a couple tears at the right moments, and bam. Active status approved. That was the problem with SHIELD. They outsourced most of their therapists. None of them were adept at dealing with people like him.

All in all, Clint didn’t see the point. Talking about what happened to him wasn’t going to change the fact that it happened. Dwelling on the past didn’t do any good but remind you of how much you got hurt, of how many people you hurt. Best to forget it and move on. Deal with it. Just man up and deal with it.

_“ ’N stop yer snivellin’ boy, or I’ll give yah somethin’ t cry about!”_

“You have a therapist,” his traitor mouth stated.

The look Barnes gave him could have withered a cactus. “I lost my arm falling from a train then spent the next seventy years as a brainwashed assassin for a secret Nazi organization,” he drawled. “I’m pretty sure I assassinated JFK. Of course I have a therapist.”

“And how’s that working out for you?” Clint snarked.

Barnes shrugged. “Good days and bad,” he murmured, staring out the window with something far away in his eyes. Like he was looking into the past. Clint kept his eyes on Barnes as he slide his fingers along the ridge of the cuffs. If they were the ones Clint thinks they are, they have a weird mechanism flaw. Impossible to take advantage of if you don’t know it exists, tricky even if you do. And if that doesn’t work…worst case scenario, he has to dislocated his thumb. Not the first time he’s had to do it, but it really fucking sucked.

“He told me to start small.”

Barnes voice was so soft it actually made Clint stop what he was doing and focus on the other man. The dark haired assassin stood with his hip resting on the rickety table, arms crossed protectively over his chest. “I didn’t have choices before. But I do now and in the beginning that was fucking scary. So he told me to start small. Do I want milk or sugar in my coffee. Do I like the colour yellow, stuff like that. Start small and then work up to the big stuff, like finding an apartment or cutting my hair.” A small smirk tugged at Barnes lips. “Still working on that last one,” he added sheepishly.

Clint’s brain was reeling. He didn’t know what he expected when Barnes had come shoving his way into the archer’s business but it wasn’t this. This wasn’t the Bucky Barnes he’d seen in old news reels or the stories Steve would regale them with on long post-mission flights, but it wasn’t the Winter Soldier either. This was someone in between.

The long hair was a far cry from what the man has sported back in the forties but Clint thought it suited him. The close shaved scruff and piercing blue eyes was a deadly combo. The Bucky Barnes from the past had the reputation of being quite the ladies man and Clint had a feeling this Bucky Barnes wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

“What?” he startled, realizing he’d been asked a question.

Barnes lips quirked up, just slightly. “I asked who else was on your list,” he repeated patiently.

Clint frowned. “My list? What list? I don’t have a list.”

“Come on Barton,” Bucky drawled. “We’ve been following your trail of bodies for three years. Rio, Paris, Prague. Rafael Gallardo and his cartel thugs in Mexico. Akihiko and his Yakuza contacts. Don’t tell me you don’t have a list.”

“Ok calm down, Arya Stark,” Clint snarked, hiding his growing unease behind snark like always. Because of course he didn’t have a list. A list spoke of an agenda, a plan. A purpose. Clint didn’t have any of that anymore.

“I don’t get that reference,” Barnes was saying with a furrowed brow.

  
“And now you sound like Cap—.”

“Aren’t you tired of running?”

Clint’s mouth snapped shut with a soft click. He couldn’t say anything to that. Not without giving away too much. Because god, he really was so very tired.

In the end it didn’t matter he kept his tongue. Something in Barnes’ eyes softened, looking very sad. Like he could suddenly see straight to the core of Clint, to every dirty little shameful secret he had coiled up under his ribs.

“Clint,” Barnes started, so gentle but somehow without an ounce of pity.

The cuff popped open with a soft snick and Clint was across the room in a breath. He grabbed Barnes by the shirtfront and slammed him up into the closest wall. It was a sloppy pin. He was shaking too much for it to be any smoother.

But Barnes didn’t fight back.

He didn’t fight against the hold Clint had on him, keeping his left arm hanging limply by his side. His right hand was pressed open palmed right in the middle of Clint’s chest; right where Loki’s sceptre had touched him. Those bright blue eyes were staring at him like they knew him and with three little words, Bucky Barnes broke him.

“When’s it end?”

Because that was it, wasn’t it? It didn’t. It would never end. It wasn’t supposed to end. It was supposed to be an endless list of darkness. An endless list of bottom feeders for Clint to hunt out and destroy and then move onto the next. And the next and the next until the darkness consumed him. It would never end and Clint knew it. And what was worse was that Barnes seemed to know it too.

“You know, Ryan told me something else,” the taller man said conversationally, like he couldn’t feel the way Clint’s hands were starting to shake. “He told me that even though I couldn’t control what they did to me, I could control how it effected me. That by living, I wasn’t letting them win.”

Clint stumbled back, letting go of the other man like he’d been burned. He scrubbed a quick hand across his face, wrenching back some semblance of self control. Or at least trying to. He couldn’t deal with this. All the pain and guilt and shit he’d shoved down deep was bubbling back to the surface and it was too much. His breath was hitching annoyingly in his chest and his hands wouldn’t stop fucking shaking. “You really shouldn’t be here,” he chuckled bitterly, looking at anything but Barnes.

“Neither should you,” Barnes replied softly, echoing back the same reply when Clint had said that to him in the alley.

Clint shook his head, planting his hands on his hips. He knew what he’d become. This was where someone, something like him belonged. He knew. He’d gone too far over the edge. It didn’t matter that it had been some very bad people on the other end of his sword. He’d doubled the red in his ledger in just three years. It was unforgivable.

“You know what I’ve done,” he stated painfully. “You know what I’ve become.”

A soft smile tugged at the corner of the brunette’s lips. “I don’t judge people on their worst mistakes.” Clint’s jaw muscles worked and twitched, throat rolling painfully against nothing but his emotions.

“Maybe you should,” he whispered.

Barnes didn’t say anything. He pushed himself off the wall, slowly closing the gap Clint had forced between them. He stopped a few feet shy of the archer, giving him space. Clint could smell the man’s aftershave. Something with Lavender, and smokey undertones mixed with rain-damp cotton.

“Bet she wouldn’t.”

Clint really hated the number three.

  
*************************

  
Bucky was pretty sure he knew what this was really about. He didn’t know Clint personally but he’d read the man’s file. It wasn’t hard to put the files against his own gut instinct to realize that Natasha Romanoff had been the closest thing the archer had to family. They had a bond that had been forged in gunfire and Bucky knew all too well how unbreakable that was. Even beyond death. Till the end of the line.

“Bet she wouldn’t,” he said softly

He watched as the archer just shattered.

A shaky breath that could more accurately be described as a sob tumbled from the man’s lips as his eyes filled. He planted his hands on his hips, jaw muscles twitching as he stared at the floor. A place deep within Bucky’s chest ached to just grab Barton by the shoulder and pull him close like he used to do with Steve when the man had been a few feet shorter.

He didn’t. This kind of grief was too raw and he didn’t know Barton well enough. He didn’t know if the gesture would be appreciated or just make everything worse. So he just stood there and pretended not to notice the tears that dripped from the archer’s eyes and splattered on the uneven floorboards.

“She was all I had,” the archer whispered brokenly.

It was said too softly to have been meant for other people’s ears. Super soldier hearing wasn’t always a blessing. Bucky pretended not to hear it. This…this was beyond grief. This was loosing a part of yourself. 

He couldn’t help himself. He took a half step forward. Immediately Barton spun away, scrubbing a hand furiously down his face. Bucky took the hint and gave Barton space to wrench back some sort of self control. Once the archer’s breath seemed to even out, he said quietly, “I think it’s time to come home.”

But Barton immediately shook his head. “I can’t,” the blonde breathed damply.

“Barton—,”

“I can’t,” the man snarled, whirling around to face him. His eyes were red but dry, face streaked and damp with remnants of tears. His face looked stiff, twisted into a semblance of an emotional stability. His hand flapped in a useless gesture, fingers trembling with endorphins. “I just….I can’t, okay? I can’t.”

His eyes met Bucky’s, pleading. Begging him to understand what the archer couldn’t bring himself to put into words. And then Bucky surprised him.

“Okay.”

Because Bucky got it. He’d felt the same way, now so many years ago. After the Potomac, after he’d read about a man named Bucky Barnes who had the same face but wasn’t him. After he found out who it was that was looking for him. He ran because he knew he couldn’t be the person Steve was expecting him to be. Was hoping him to be. A part of Steve hoped that once they found each other everything would be like it once was, Bucky knew he did. But it could never be the same.

Barton wasn’t the same person who had fought at the hanger bay, all fancy trick arrows and glib mid-battle remarks. This had nothing to do with revenge or some list. This was someone who’d lost everything and didn’t know who they were anymore. Bucky understood that better than most.

So he crossed into the tiny galley kitchen and rustled around until he found a stained takeout menu and a pencil. “This is my number,” he explained, holding the paper out to the blonde. “It’s my personal. No one monitors it. You need backup, a supply drop, anything, you use it. Whatever you need, wherever you need it, no questions asked.”

Barton eyed the paper suspiciously. “What’s the catch?” he asked, voice hoarse and rasping.

“If you’re not back in a year, I’ll find you and drag you back by that punk ass hair myself,” Bucky stated, without a hint of humour in his tone. Barton snorted harshly. He didn’t smile but the mood around them lightened just a little.

“Speak for yourself, Tarzan,” the archer muttered as he reached for the menu. Bucky tightened his grip as he felt the paper being pulled. Barton’s eyes snapped up to his at the resistance, once again wary.

“If you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m a light sleeper,” Bucky offered hesitantly, not sure if he was pushing his luck too far. Nothing in the other man’s expression changed but his throat rolled and Bucky felt the grip tightening on the paper. He held it for a moment longer than let it go. He knew he wouldn’t get anything more.

He was halfway out the window when a soft “Hey Barnes,” made him pause. He glanced back to find Barton standing in the same spot, the menu clutched between his fingers like a lifeline.

“Thanks.”

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

If anyone thought the man loitering outside the front gate of the Avengers complex looked suspicious, they’d be completely right. The scuffed boots and ripped jeans, with a beat up old rucksack slung over one shoulder, were completely out of place next to the sleek modern facility. The dark sunglasses did nothing to hide the remnants of the black eye that dipped down across a cheekbone, nor the scar that dissected the jawbone, still pink in its newness.

The man stared at the gate for a long time. Long enough that the security cameras took a closer interest in him. Long enough that the gate opened unprompted, sliding smoothly back on its wheels.

Clint huffed a long slow sigh and began to walk.

It took him a good half an hour to reach the complex. He wasn’t in a hurry. Gravel crunched softly under his boots. With each step closer, a heavier weight seemed to settle across his shoulders. Because he’d left; abandoned his team at a funeral. He wouldn’t blame them for hating him for that.

It had been eight and a half months since Barnes tracked him down. In that time he’d been across half the world. Japan felt like a lifetime ago. He’d only used the number Barnes left him once, when he’d been holed up in an old hunting shack in Croatia with an infected knife wound. The little drone that had dropped off the meds had also sent MREs, a few fancy new weapons, and a note written in the same slanting hand as the grungy takeout menu Clint kept in his vest pocket.

_If you die doing something stupid, Wanda will never forgive you. And I’ll never hear the end of it._

Clint wondered if he would have really come home if Hill hadn’t got in touch. He wasn’t sure. He probably wouldn't have, just to see Barnes traipse across the world to try and find him again. As it was, he’d gotten the first flight he could after he got the call. How could he not?

Besides, he was done running.

Before long he was standing in front of the main doors, all glass and steel in its shiny newness. It hadn’t been rebuilt the same, but it was similar enough to feel the same. Same white walls. Same ridiculous amount of glass. Same perfectly manicured grounds. A small part of Clint idly wondered just how many gardeners it took to maintain the property. Probably a lot.

He froze as he stepped into the lobby, confronted with the Avengers’ version of the SHIELD Wall of Valour. He swallowed the lump as his eyes skimmed the hundreds of names of the men and women who’d given their lives fighting Thanos. Vision’s name was at the top left, above a rather striking photo of the man smiling fondly into the camera. Stark was in the middle, smirking like always. And Natasha…

Clint took a deep breath. He was so very grateful they didn’t use her SHIELD ID photo or an Avengers press headshot. She was in civies, hair bight red and straight. This had been years ago, after New York but before SHIELD fell. It almost felt candid, like the photographer had caught her mid turn. Her eyes were bright, a crooked smile tugging at her lips. She looked beautiful. Happy. Alive.

His eyes stung and his throat closed but he smiled. It still hurt but now it was a dull ache that didn’t rip the breath from his lungs. Time really did heal some wounds. Or at least, if not heal then at least callous over to a bearable pain. He still missed her. He’d always miss her and it would always hurt. But something Bucky had said back in Japan had eventually gotten through to him.

_"By living, I wasn’t letting them win."_

He reached up, fingertips brushing the corner of the frame. She’d want him to live. Hell, she’d kick his ass from here to Budapest and back again if she knew what he had been doing these last four years. A damp chuckle breathed past his lips. God, she’d be so pissed at him. Tony would have scolded him six ways to Sunday. Vision would have just looked mildly disappointed, but Nat would have verbally flayed him alive.

They’d done the hard part so Clint and millions of others could keep living. That was only fair to do just that. Anything less would be an insult to their memory. Besides, they weren’t really dead. Not as long as those left behind remembered them.

Soft hasty footsteps had him scrubbing a hand quickly across his eyes. A beat later and Sam came into view, eyes scanning the lobby before locking onto Clint. The man froze, staring across the open space with wide eyes.

“Hey Sam,” Clint said sheepishly.

He swallowed thickly. He opened his mouth to say…something, he wasn’t sure. What could make up for disappearing for almost four years, raking up a body count unacceptable anywhere outside of an all out war. Before he could work himself up into a panic, Sam was moving and Clint was enveloped in a rib-cracking hug.

“Man, it is good to see you,” Sam breathed as he pulled away. He looked good, bigger than Clint remembered. More muscle. He had a heavy mantle to pick up and it looked like he was carrying well. His eyes were a different story, red rimmed and watery and so very tired.

“I’m sorry,” Clint murmured, unable to put what he was sorry for into exact words. Sorry that he hadn’t come back sooner. Sorry he hadn’t come back just solely on his own accord. Sorry that he’d run in the first place. Sorry for everything.

The hand that hadn’t left his shoulder squeezed gently. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters,” the man said simply. A little bit of that weight released from around Clint’s ribs. He and Sam had bonded a little during their time in solitary on the raft. He’d been worried about what the man would think of him now. Seems like he didn’t have to worry. He didn’t trust his voice so he just nodded. “Come on,” Sam said, giving his shoulder on last squeeze. “Everyone’s in the library.”

 

  
Everyone really was in the library. Pepper and Rhodes were there, talking softly with Happy and Maria Hill. Lang was in an armchair with Hope perched beside him. Bruce sat on the couch opposite, big hands clasp together in his lap. The spider kid sat next to him, completely dwarfed next to the doctor’s bulk. T’Challa and Okoye stood stoically by the windows. Even Sharon Carter was there, sitting in the other armchair with a mug of something steaming in her hands.

And Wanda…

Everyone turned when he and Sam stepped into the room but Clint only had eyes for Wanda, standing dead centre by the fireplace. She was the first to move, striding across the room with eyes that sparked red to slap him full across the face. He didn’t even try to stop the hit. He just took it, unable to meet her eyes. His cheek stung but he knew it wasn’t even close to what she was capable of.

“Don’t you ever,” she snarled softly, hints of her accent slipping through. “ _Ever_ scare me like that again.”

Then Clint suddenly had an armful of witch. Slender arms clamped down around his middle, squeezing the breath from his lungs. He was too stunned to do anything right away but soon he was hugging her back just as fiercely.

“I’m sorry kid,” he muttered against her shoulder.

“Don’t apologize,” she replied gently. “Just don’t do it again.” Clint only held her tighter. After a moment, he let her go. She smiled at him, eyes watery but not overflowing as she brushed her fingertips along one shaved side. “Interesting choice,” she said with a weak smile.

“What can I say? It’s grown on me,” he quipped, prompting an eye roll from Wanda so epic it would have made Nat proud.

“Carol went looking for Thor and the Guardians,” Sam explained as he suddenly appeared next to Clint’s elbow with two mug of coffee. “She left two days ago but we haven’t had word yet.” Clint nodded, accepting the caffeine gratefully. Jet lag was an exhausting bitch. So was grief. Wanda took the other mug, sipping hers carefully. “Strange sends his condolences,” Sam continued. “As does the Director of the new SHIELD, although there wasn’t a name. Just initials; PJC. Anyone you know?”

Clint very carefully did not choke on his coffee. He shook his head because it was just a coincidence, even though he very much didn’t believe in them. But in this case, that was all it was. A coincidence. It couldn’t be anything more. He didn’t have it in him to hold onto that kind of a hope.

“Sam, I’m sorry but you have a call from the Attorney General on the line,” FRIDAY interrupted ruefully. Sam moved off with an apologetic shrug. Conversation around them resumed, or didn’t depending on what people had been doing before he’d arrived. Clint sipped his coffee, doing another scan of the room. That’s when he realized he’d been wrong before. Not everyone was here.

“Where’s Barnes?” he asked Wanda.

The woman’s face fell. She swallowed, taking a shaky breath. “He locked down his rooms,” she explained sadly. “We’ve tried but he won’t let us in. Won’t talk to anyone. Hasn’t come out since…” she trailed off, eyes growing glassy. Clint nodded. He really didn’t expect anything else. He pressed his lips against Wanda’s temple and headed back the way he came.

“Take me to Barnes,” he said as he stepped into the elevator.

“I’m sorry but Sergeant Barnes has asked not to be disturbed,” replied the air in a lilting voice. Clint huffed a sigh, planting his hands on his hips.

“It’s fine, he’ll talk to me.” He hoped.

“I’m sorry sir, but Sergeant Barnes gave very clear instructions—,”

“Alright listen, you disembodied harpy,” Clint hissed, too tired and sad to deal with this graciously. “Either you take me there right now or I will climb up this goddamn elevator shaft and pry the doors open by hand. Either way, I am getting into his rooms.”

Silence.

“Please,” he breathed because he'd never been above begging. Not for things that really mattered.

And this mattered.

A pause. Then the doors closed and the floor started to vibrate softly under his boots. A moment later and the doors slide open again, revealing an open concept living space. High ceilings and warm wood floors. The kitchen sprawled across the right wall. A hallway disappeared to what Clint assumed was the bedroom.

The living area sat to the left, sunken slightly into the floor and taking up the whole left corner of the room. He glanced around the space, catching sight of a dark thatch of hair poking out from beside one of the couches.

“Barnes?” he called out cautiously, stepping further into the room.

Carefully he made his way over, keeping his footsteps louder than normal. The last thing he wanted to do was startle the man. “Barnes?” he murmured as he rounded the corner of the couch. What he found stopped him dead, the bottom of his stomach falling out into his boots.

Barnes was sitting on the floor, back against the wall with his arms resting limply on his knees. He was barefoot, wearing rumbled sweatpants and a black t-shirt. His hair was tangled and unkempt, his face sporting at least a weeks worth of facial hair.

Nothing was amiss with his left hand. The knuckles on his right however were bruised and caked with blood, both fresh and old. Days old in fact, dried to the point of flaking. It looked like the man had been punching concrete, which wasn’t out of the realm of possibilities.

And his eyes.

Clint had never seen a living man’s eyes look so dead. Red rimmed and glazed, with circles under them so dark they looked like bruises. The blue colour of them looked dulled as the man continued to stare blankly ahead. If he looked closely enough, Clint could see the dried tracks of previously shed tears marking the man’s cheeks.

He moved cautiously, aware of the fact that he had no idea what headspace Barnes was in. If he even was Barnes or more Soldier right now. He didn’t know if that was even still a problem but Clint figured it would be. He was only mind controlled for a few days and he still had episodes where he lost himself.

Slowly, he got himself sitting down against the wall, leaving enough space between them so not to crowd. He didn’t speak, didn’t try to touch Barnes. He just sat there because sometimes knowing someone was there is enough.

Hours passed. Clint had arrived mid afternoon and the sun was setting, throwing long shadows and warm light across the floor, when Barnes finally stirred. It was subtle. A slight tremble in the right fingers. Clint glanced up at the man to find Barnes’ eyes focused and on the brink of overflowing.

“I didn’t get to say goodbye.”

His voice was whisper quiet, like saying it any louder would make it real. Something inside Clint splintered and he blinked against the sudden burning in his eyes. Carefully, he reached over and wrapped a hand over the brunette’s bicep. The vibranium was hard and unyielding to his touch. He wasn’t even sure if the man could feel it. But then again maybe he could because after a few moments of Clint stroking his thumb across one of the metal plates, Barnes just crumpled.

He folded in on himself, head tucking between his knees. Clint moved his other hand to rest gently between Barnes’ shoulder blades. He could feel the sobs heave through the man’s back but Barnes didn’t make a sound. Men like them didn’t. It had been trained out of them. Beaten out, in Clint’s case. Barnes’ too, most likely. HYDRA didn’t seem the type to encourage the healthy expression of emotion.

But that didn’t mean they didn’t feel, or grieve, any less.

Night had fully fallen by the time Barnes stopped shaking. Stiffly, he pushed himself back upright. Clint pulled his arms back as he wiped away a few tears of his own. “I just…,” Barnes whispered. “I don’t know what to do now.”

“Well,” Clint said slowly. “A shower wouldn’t hurt. Maybe a change of clothes.”

Barnes huffed a damp snort, rolling his eyes over to glare at the archer. “You saying I stink, Barton?” he rasped softly. At least the man still had his sense of humour. Clint squashed the impulse to retort in kind and instead said something that Barnes had told him almost a year ago, in a shit-hole of a safe house down by the docks in Tokyo.

“Start small. Then work up to the big stuff.”

Barnes looked away, jaw muscles twitching. Another tense moment, another shaky breath. Then he was scrubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms, looking so childlike.

It was then Clint realized just how painfully young Barnes really was. Between all the cryofreeze and being disintegrated by the infinity stones, he was barely into his thirties. And yet he’d lived a lifetime and experienced enough trauma for a hundred. It was like when Clint would catch Steve staring off into space when he thought no one was looking. Eyes that old had no place in such a young face.

“Whoever told you that sounds like a smart guy,” Barnes rasped, breaking Clint out of his revelation.

“Meh,” Clint shrugged. “He’s alright. Kinda stinks right now though.”

Barnes huffed a watery chuckle, scrubbing his nose on his sleeve. “Okay, okay, I can take a hint,” he drawled, struggling to his feet. He looked a little unsteady so Clint stood with him, keeping his arms by his side but ready if the guy took a nosedive. He didn’t and together they crossed back into the kitchen.

“Go on,” Clint prompted gently when Barnes faltered and started to get that lost look back in his eyes. “I’ll make something to eat.” The brunette just nodded and padded out down the hall. It was a testament to how tired he was that Clint didn’t get any sort of resistance. A few moments later and he heard the shower turn on.

He wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge door, crinkling his nose at the curled milk and mouldy vegetables that greeted him. “Hey Friday,” he asked, closing the door and putting the kettle on instead. “Can you place a takeout order?”

 

  
By the time Barnes came back, fresh faced and hair dripping, two bowls of ramen and two mugs of coffee sat steaming on the breakfast bar. Barnes faltered, eyes widening a little. Clint just smirked and began to tuck into his. Cautiously, the dark haired man sat down beside him. He went for the coffee first, drinking it down like a man dying of thirst. Clint chuckled softly. A man after his own heart.

Clint finished first and then turned his eyes to the rats nest that was masquerading as Barnes’ hair. “You want me to brush your hair?” he offered before fully thinking it through.

Barnes froze, chopsticks halfway to his lips. Clint felt his face flush. “What, I did it all the time for my nieces,” he snapped. “And you need all the help you can get. I mean, do you even use conditioner?” Barnes just stared at him. “Never mind, I’m sure the birds will appreciate a new home come spring,” Clint mumbled, wishing he could bodily hide in his soup bowl. What a time for his runaway train sort of rambling humour to kick back into gear.

“There’s a brush in the bathroom drawer,” Barnes said softly, looking far too vulnerable. “And fuck you, it’s called two-in-one,” he added, wrenching back whatever control he felt like he’d given up.

Clint rolled his eyes. “That stuff never works as advertised,” he snarked as he hopped off his stool and went hunting for the bathroom. He found it easily along with the brush exactly where Barnes said it would be. With some helpful prompting from FRIDAY, he found a bottle of leave-in conditioner shoved to the back of the hall closet. “Now this,” he proclaimed, striding victoriously back into the kitchen. “This is the good shit.”

He dragged his stool behind Barnes, perching on it to give him the needed height. He sprayed the damp hair thoroughly, then started a section at a time. It was a relaxing, mindless task. Inch by inch, he felt Barnes relax too. The tension from his shoulders slowly bled out. He even though he heard a little hum of contentment when he scratched the brush along the man’s skull.

Then he started braiding it, starting high on the crown of Barnes’ head just like he’d done for his nieces. He finished quickly, tying it off with an elastic he’d found in the bathroom. “Voila,” he said, reaching around to grab his neglected coffee. “A veritable Disney princess.”

Barnes snorted but it was ruined by a massive yawn that hurt Clint’s jaw just watching it. “Think you can get some sleep?” he asked softly. Barnes shrugged.

“Probably not,” he sighed. “But I guess I should try.”

“I got it,” Clint interjected as Barnes started to pick up his dishes. “Really, I got it,” he insisted at Barnes’ quizzical and slightly confused look. “Go to bed before you fall asleep standing up,” he added, flapping his hand in the brunette’s direction. It took a gentle shove to Barnes’ right shoulder before the man finally relented.

Clint started stacking the bowls, seeing Barnes pause in his periphery. “Hey Barton?” he heard the man murmur.

“Yeah?” he replied, glancing up over an armful of dishes.

“Thanks.”

  
*******************************

  
Bucky woke at dawn with gritty eyes and braided hair.

He sat up stiffly, scrubbing a hand over his face. He’d actually gotten some sleep. Not a lot, but better than he’d been getting lately. The problem with getting sleep however, was waking up. He hated waking up. It was in those moments of grogginess where he forgot. And that just made remembering all the more painful.

He padded into the kitchen and rattled around with the coffee maker, not bothering to be quiet because there wasn’t anyone around to be disturbed by it. At least that’s what he thought until something moved in his periphery. He spun with a flinch to find Barton sitting up on the couch, blinking sleepily.

The man’s hair was a mess, half of it flattened against his skull while the other half stuck straight up. His boots were in a pile at the foot of the couch, his jeans tossed over the back. A thick knit blanket lay across his lap.

“You’re still here,” Bucky blurted out.

“Umm, yeah, sorry,” the archer muttered, struggling to his feet. The blanket fell to a heap on the floor, revealing the man was wearing nothing but tight blue boxers with little red arrow decals. Clint flushed, snatching up his jeans and pulling them on clumsily. “I didn’t feel right just leaving and I guess…Sorry,” he said again as he did up the buttons of his fly.

“No, it’s fine. It’s…,” Bucky trailed off, a little off balance by finding the archer still in his apartment. And without pants, no less. “You want coffee?” he offered because his mother had raised him to be polite to guests, even unexpected ones.

“God yes,” the blonde moaned, making his way into the kitchen and collapsing into the nearest barstool. Bucky chuckled, marvelling that the archer’s caffeine addiction seemed to rival even his. He poured them two mugs and was about to ask if Barton wanted anything in his before the mug was snatched from his hands.

“Careful, it’s…,” _hot._ Bucky watched wide-eyed as the blonde downed the entire mug in five seconds flat, not even stopping for breath. “Jesus,” he muttered, sipping his at a far more sedate pace. Barton just shrugged and moved to pour himself another mug. This one he took a bit more time on, adding things like cream and honey and to Bucky’s astonishment, cinnamon.

They were sitting quietly at the breakfast bar when suddenly Barton’s went stiff all over, wide eyes snapping sharply over to stare at him. “What?” Bucky asked, immediately tense and ready for whatever threat the archer had sensed but then —

“You assassinated JKF?!”

“I… _what?”_ It was far to early in the morning to be digging into his grizzly past as the Winter Solider. He’d need at least two more pots of coffee before that.

Clint immediately blanched. “Shit, that’s not…,” he stumbled. “No, I was thinking about what you said before and it only just hit me. Shit, that was fucking insensitive. I’m sorry.”

“…what?” Bucky repeated, trying to think of when that particular topic had come up in the last six hours because he’s pretty sure it hadn’t. Then he remembered a conversation that happened half way around the world while the archer had been cuffed to a radiator. “That was almost a year ago,” he stated flatly.

“I know!” the blonde exclaimed. “I just…ah fuck.”

The archer just looked so mortified, a pink flush staining up his necks and across his cheeks. Bucky couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. The laugh surprised him, sneaking up like as a bubble of a chuckle before turning into a pullout guffaw. Barton looked at him in alarm and then with embarrassed reproach once he realized Bucky wasn’t choking or having an aneurysm. “It wasn’t that funny,” he grumbled into his coffee.

“Believe me Barton, it was,” he corrected with a chuckle.

“Clint.” Bucky looked at him inquisitively and the man just shrugged. “We survived the end of the world. You’ve seen me without pants. It only seems right to be on a first name basis.”

Something warm curling up under his ribs. “Bucky,” he said, holding out his right hand. Clint shook it with an answering grin. “Nice to meet you. You may have heard, but I probably killed the thirty-fifth President of the United States.”

Clint snorted, hand lingering in Bucky’s palm a little longer than traditional for a handshake. “Clint,” he repeated. “I killed twenty-three people while being mind controlled by an alien psychopath bent on world domination.”

“That must have sucked,” Bucky replied with a crooked smirk. It was rare to find someone who could joke like this. Steve never could. It made him uncomfortable whenever Bucky made light of what happened to him. But with this kind of trauma, sometimes the only thing you can do is joke about it.

“You have no idea,” Clint chuckled. “Oh wait,” he added with a snap of his fingers and a point towards Bucky’s nose. “You actually do.”

“Brain washing. There’s a difference.”

“Eh, tomato, tomahto.”

The jovial mood came to a screeching halt when FRIDAY announced there was a delivery for them and the elevator doors slide open to reveal three black garment bags hanging from a rolling rack. Bucky’s heart dropped into his boots.

He made his feet cross the distance, feeling Clint’s eyes tracking him like a hawk. He reached for the closest one that had his named penned neatly on the name tag, and unzipped it halfway. Underneath lay a crisp black suit. So it was today.

“I lost track of the days,” he murmured, fingering one of the immaculately pressed lapels. He sniffed sharply, re-zipping the bag efficiently. “Why’re there three bags?” he asked. Clint’s name was on one but there was nothing to identify the recipient of the third bag.

“Captain Wilson had it made for you,” FRIDAY explained gently. “He said to tell you no pressure but that he thought you might want to wear it.”

Carefully, he unzipped the third bag. He’d barely got it open before the sight of army green had his breath lodging in his chest. He slowly unzipped the rest of it with shaking fingers.

He stood and stared for so long that Clint actually got up off his seat and came over to check on him. He heard the little hum of understanding as the man came to stand just behind his right shoulder. “You okay?” the archer asked gently.

“I…,” Bucky started, still staring into the bag. “I want to cut my hair.

 

 

Steve’s funeral was simple. Bucky had almost thrown up when he’d seen the elaborate event the President and Attorney General wanted to put on. A massive memorial parade, a full military funeral at Arlington, a statue dedication in Washington. It was horrific and the last thing Steve would have wanted.

Thankfully Sam, Pepper, and Hill had all firmly put their collective foot down. If the President wanted to arrange a memorial that was fine but they were going to hold a small, intimate funeral for family and close friends only.

They buried him next to Peggy. Bucky didn’t know how Pepper managed to keep the reporters away but she did. No one disturbed them. Hill officiated, dressed sombrely in a black suit. Everyone Steve cared about or called friend was there.

The Avengers, the Guardians, and Dr. Strange. T’Challa, Okoye, and Shuri. Danvers, Lang, and Parker. Sharon and a couple other agents that Steve had known personally. Beth, the waitress from the cafe Steve used to frequent and whose life he’d saved during the Chitauri invasion. The nursing staff that had taken care of Peggy. A handful of people from the VA and from the support group Steve had started after the Decimation.

Halfway through the ceremony, Bucky caught sight of Fury standing at the edge of the cemetery. With him was a shorter man Bucky didn’t know, with dark sunglasses and a receding hairline.

Sam and Bucky did the honour of folding the flag that had been carefully draped over Steve’s coffin. They presented it to Steve and Peggy’s daughter Natasha. She took it with a teary smile, surrounded by her children and grandchildren. Then they, together with Clint, Rhodes, and Sharon, each picked up a 1940s Johnson rifle and fired three times into the air.

A final salute.

People began to trickle away after that. Natasha paused as the passed, laying a hand on Bucky’s arm. “My father loved telling stories,” she told him. “He would tell me a new one every night when I was growing up. The ones about you were always my favourite.”

Bucky swallowed thickly. He should say something. But he didn’t. Besides, she already knew the important things. That her father was a hero. That Bucky wouldn’t be alive or himself if it weren’t for Steve Rogers. That the world was a sadder place without him.

“He’d get this little smile on his face,” she continued softly, lost in her own memories. “And this far away look in his eye and he’d tell me that Bucky Barnes was the best friend he ever had.” Bucky couldn’t speak. His throat had closed up. It felt like swallowing nails. Natasha didn’t seem to expect anything from him. She squeezed his arm comfortingly, pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek, and was gone.

He stayed until the groundsmen had finished smoothing over the last of the dirt and had placed the headstone firmly in the ground. Sam stayed with him for some of it, but duties called him away before the end. Clint stayed the whole time, a silent grounding presence just behind Bucky’s shoulder.

After the last of the crew left, Bucky stepped forward on stiff legs and knelt in the damp earth. He took a shaky breath, staring down at the neat writing engraved in white marble.

_Steven Grant Rogers_   
_July 4th, 1918 — March 27th, 2027._   
_Just a little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb_   
_not to run away from a fight_

“Guess this is the end of the line, pal,” he said softly.

He reached into the pocket of his dress uniform, which was a perfect blending on modern styles and the one he’d worn back in the 40s, and pulled out a Howling Commandoes commemorative pin. He placed it gently at the base of the headstone, next to a vintage Captain America trading cared sealed in protective plastic. He hadn’t seen who’d left it. He looked over to Peggy’s grave, to the colourful flowers that were piled around her headstone.

“Take care of him,” he murmured.

He carefully dusted the dirt from his knees and made his way back to where Clint was standing, hands in pockets, as patient as could be. “You ready?” he asked as Bucky neared.   
“Yeah, I think so,” he huffed, scrubbing a hand nervously through his newly shorn locks. He still wasn’t used to it but it felt right. Like his uniform, it was an homage to the haircut he’d had during the war, with a bit of a more modern twist. He felt more like himself, whatever that was now.

“We can stay as long as you want,” Clint offered but Bucky shook his head.

“No, it’s okay,” he said, more confident this time. “We should probably get going. Don’t want to be late,” he added, referring to the gathering that was being hosted at Steve’s grandson’s house. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t like lots of people in enclosed spaces. There’d be stories and he just knew he’d be asked about Steve pre-serum. He didn’t think he could tell those stories yet.

“Or,” Clint offered, clearly seeing Bucky’s reluctance. “We could go back to headquarters, order pizza, and catch you up on Game of Thrones. I know you haven’t seen it because you didn’t get my Arya reference.” Bucky just shook his head as Clint once again referenced a six minute conversation they’d had almost a year ago.

“Sounds perfect,” he murmured.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone for reading! I know this was a sad chapter. Feedback is my fairy dust. xx


	4. Chapter 4

 

Life moves forward, regardless of who gets left behind. Two weeks to the day of Steve’s funeral, Bucky was on a jet with a team headed to the other side of the world. But it was okay because he had Clint in his ear the entire mission, distracting him with snarky comments and ridiculous facts about birds. Bucky now knew the longest recorded flight of a chicken was thirteen seconds. He really didn’t know what he was supposed to do with that information.

Two hours after that mission, Sam asked Clint to stay on in a more official capacity. The archer said yes. Bemoaning old age and bad knees, he came on board as head of tactical support. On paper that meant he’d be at headquarters monitoring missions with FRIDAY. In reality it meant equal parts amusing and annoying them all with his running commentary. All joking aside, years of practical experience made his eyes and input invaluable. Within the first week alone, he had saved their asses multiple times.

There were also many opportunities for field work whenever they were short a pilot or in need of the archer’s specific skill set. Or whenever Clint just got bored and remembered he didn’t actually have bad knees yet.

Clint was a welcome addition to the team. He brought a lighthearted spark that had previously been missing. Wanda was happier in everything she did. Sam was grateful to have someone else to share responsibilities with besides Bucky. Clint turned out to be surprisingly adept at handling public relations. This was good because Sam hated it and to say Bucky wasn’t a people person would have been the underestimation of the century.

That lighthearted spark had also been something the archer himself had been missing when Bucky had cornered him in Japan. It had come back, slowly but surely, over the weeks until Clint was back in full force, to equal joy and bemoaning from his fellow teammates.

Even with the humour back, Bucky could tell the shadow of what happened during those three years Clint was missing still haunted the man. Bucky could see it in the man’s eyes on the days he came back from missions to find takeout on the coffee table instead of something homemade. He saw it in the way Clint would wear long sleeves on those days to cover his tattoo.

Bucky still didn’t know what the meaning was behind the art. He’d asked once but Clint just shrugged the question aside with a clenched jaw. The next evening Bucky had caught sight of the little spider with the red hourglass on its back tucked into the crook of Clint’s elbow. He never asked again.

And he’d be quiet. Quiet for Clint, which was not always as obvious to an outside eye. He’d still talk and snark but there was an edge to it. Like he was just going through the motions. A backseat passenger with his body on autopilot.

Bucky wished he knew how to help. He knew Sam offered the numbers of some therapists and that Clint just laughed it off. It frustrated Bucky to hear that. He’d hated his sessions in the beginning. He still hated them but he kept going because he knew they were helping. He hadn’t had a flashbacks and dissociative episodes in almost two years. His night terrors were few and far between. He still had bad dreams, still woke up in a cold sweat more often than not. But he didn’t wake up in panics anymore, with an icy terror tightening his chest until he couldn’t breathe.

“You can’t help people who won’t accept help,” Ryan had told him when he vented about his frustrations. He was careful to avoid names, but Ryan probably guessed anyways. “There was a time when you were like that too,” his therapist added with a crooked smile. “I considered it a win in those early days if you even said good morning to me.” Bucky had blushed and changed the topic.

Movie nights had also become a regular affair. Bucky would come home from a mission to find Clint already in the his rooms, sprawled out on the couch with takeout or more likely in the kitchen cooking. Bucky had no idea Clint was such a good cook. He was getting far too used to coming home to find the archer in the kitchen, whistling along to whatever ridiculous tune was playing.

There was a lot of things Bucky could get used to.

He wasn’t blind. He was all too aware that the archer was very handsome. Maybe not in the classic sense; his nose was too big for that. But he had a strong jawline and eyes that sparkled whenever he laughed, which was often these days. He had a quick wit paired with a sense of humour that was both sharp and sarcastic. Not to mention the biceps.

Bucky hadn’t felt that telltale fluttering in his stomach in almost over sixty years and it scared the shit out of him. Not that he would ever act on it. He wouldn’t even know how to act on it. He knew what to do with a dame, but not…

He’d been forced to hide that side of himself for so very long. Rationally, he knew that people like him were far more accepted these days. That here in New York two fella’s could even get married if they wanted to. He’d damn near wept when he’d found that out. But none of that mattered. He wasn’t about to risk this newfound friendship. And just because people like him were accepted by many, it still wasn’t all. He didn’t think of Clint as anything but open and accepting but it was another risk he wasn’t willing to take. So he just shoved the feeling aside whenever they popped up and pretended everything was fine.

Tonight, Clint was cooking something involving pasta. The water was boiling, the pasta coiled neatly next to the stove because the maniac had made fresh pasta from scratch. Something creamy was simmering in a big pan, smelling of garlic and parsley.

“Hey,” he sighed tiredly, dropping his gear in a heap by the door. Clint waved a hand in greeting, the other busy stirring the sauce. “Smells good,” he said, passing behind grab a coconut water from the fridge.

“You don’t,” Clint drawled, wrinkling his nose in disgust. Bucky just chuckled tiredly, ignored the way his heart tried to do a backflip inside his chest cavity, and headed towards the bathroom. By the time he was out and changed, the archer had two large plates of pasta topped with chicken ready and waiting. “You ready for the final season of Thrones ever?” the blonde crowed.

“Bring it,” Bucky drawled as he followed Clint into the living room. “Cersei needs to die immediately.” Clint just smirked and asked FRIDAY to cue it up.

They were barely twenty minutes into the first episode when the lights above them slammed red. An alarm blared loudly across the room. In the beginning, Bucky’d used to jump whenever the assembly alarm went off. Now he just huffed a long suffering sigh and heaved himself off the couch. Clint tossed the leftovers quickly in the fridge and together they made their way to the armoury.

“Barton, suit up,” Sam said when they got there. He was already suited up, slinging the shield onto his back with a soft magnetized thud. “We’ll need both you on this.”

“What are we dealing with?” Bucky asked, only slightly distracted by a certain archer casually stripping down to his boxers, this pair sporting tiny little mjolnirs. “You know we have change rooms for that,” he drawled, pointedly not staring at the way the man’s back muscles rippled as he shrugged into his skin-tight under layers.

“Don’t tell me I’ve offended your delicate sensibilities, Barnes,” the blonde teased with a wicked smirk.

“I’ll show you delicate,” Bucky grumbled.

“Promises, promises,” the archer crowed as he buckled up his vest and started strapping his gauntlets to his wrists.

Bucky just rolled his eyes and crossed to his own locker. He could feel Sam’s gaze flicking between them curiously. “What?” he snapped, not liking the dawning look of…something that flickered across Sam’s face.

“Wheels up in five,” was all Sam said before making himself scarce. Bucky glanced over to Clint, who just shrugged as he slide his quiver into place.

 

 

“Shit,” Bucky muttered to himself as he took down one creature only to have three more appear from the shimmering portal they hadn’t figured out how to close yet. These things were vicious bastards. Some sort of wolf/cat hybrid with long claws and wicked teeth. They were also scary fast. “We need to shut down that portal,” he said louder, for the benefit of those on comms. “Any idea what’s powering it?”

“Strange is on it,” replied Sam. “Just make sure none of these things breach the perimeter.”

“Copy that,” Wanda grunted as a scarlet energy bloomed over the roofs a few blocks over.

“It’s like Budapest all over again,” he heard Clint mutter to himself as Bucky lined up his next shot. His finger was tensing on the trigger when his target suddenly crashed to the ground with an arrow in it’s eye socket. Bucky wasn’t even mad. From the roof where Barton was perched, a few down and across the street from Bucky’s position, it was a hell of a shot.

“One of these days you’re really gonna have to tell me what happened in Budapest,” Bucky mused, dropping another hybrid easily.

“Sorry Barnes and Noble, I promised to never tell a soul.”

“Is that all of them?” asked Wanda, sounding slightly out of breath.

“And what even are they?” added Clint. “I mean really, what maniac thought taking two apex predators and smushing them together in a gene blender was a good idea? And then to just release them in the streets of New York? Hasn’t this city been through enough of this kinda shit?”

Bucky had been wondering the same thing, but for a slightly different reason. They were in a relatively vacant warehouse district. They weren’t anywhere near downtown. It almost felt like a distraction tactic. He scanned the streets, seeing nothing but rubble and unmoving furry bodies. “North sector’s clear,” Sam radioed in. Bucky added that the main street was clear from his vantage point, quickly followed by Wanda and Clint. It was over.

“Wanda, help Strange with the device he found. Barton, liaison with local law enforcement when they arrive. Barnes, you stay high. Keep an eye out,” Sam delegated.

“Aye aye, Cap,” Clint quipped in his ear before Bucky caught sight of a small spec repelling down the side of a building across the street. “So what are we gonna call these beasties?” the man was saying as he strolled down the street towards the building Bucky was perched on. “I vote Wolf-nato.”

“Absolutely not,” Bucky retorted, still scanning the streets. Clint had forced him to sit through that…Bucky was loath to even call it a film, last week. Apparently there were a bunch of them, to Bucky’s extreme dismay.

“Land-wolves?”

“Isn’t every wolf a land wolf?” asked Wanda, putting in her two cents.

Bucky just rolled his eyes. “Don’t encourage him,” he drawled right as a soft growl, barely audible even to his own enhanced ears, grabbed his attention. He caught sight of a ripple of fur slinking out from behind a crushed car a few yards away. The thing was stalking something….

“Barton,” he cautioned.

“I see it,” Clint murmured. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t do anything actually. He just kept standing at ease in the middle of the ruined street, right below Bucky’s perch.

“Barton,” he said again, shifting his grip on his rifle. He didn’t have a clear shot from this angle. The car was between him and the creature, with Clint straight down the middle.

“I said I see it, Barnes. Keep your pants on,” the archer muttered.

“Clint, I don’t have a shot!” he growled as the beast’s muscles coiled. His heart pounding in his ears as he watched the thing leap!

And then Clint was moving. He spun, leaping up over another car faster than Bucky could blink. The creature stumbled as an arrow slammed into it’s throat. It made a sickly gurgle. Clint flipped off the car hood and the creature slumped to the ground as another arrow bloomed from it’s eye socket.

Bucky let out a breath he hadn’t even known he was holding. He tracked his rifle sight back to the archer. Clint did a little fist pump and turned to give him a sardonic salute. “See, Barnes? he said with a grin. “What did I tell yah? Nothing to worry abo—.”

There was no warning. Just a blur in the corner of Bucky’s eye before the wolf slammed into Clint.The archer’s name screamed from Bucky’s lips as Clint disappeared under a mass of grey-yellow fur.

He peered desperately through his scope, tuning out the panicked shouts of the others coming through his comms and the terrifying snarls from the street below. Clint and the hybrid were tumbling over each other, a tangling of limbs and claws. It was near impossible to get a shot off without hitting Clint.

Near impossible, but not for him.

He counted the rolls, took a breath, and fired. He felt the rifle recoil against his shoulder. Saw the beast flinch as the bullet ripped into its side. It came to a stumbling halt but didn’t go down. He’d missed the heart. In the next moment the thing lunged forward and clamped it’s jaws down around Clint’s shoulder and side. The archer’s scream brought bile to Bucky’s throat.

Sam’s shield came out of nowhere, ricocheting off the beast’s shoulder. It released Clint with a snarl and turned towards this new threat. It was enough of a distraction for Bucky to shoot the thing through the head, at the same time Clint plunged his sword up through the underside of it’s jaw.

There was a moment of stillness and then both wolf and archer collapsed.

Bucky didn’t remember scrambling down the fire escape or running across the street. The next thing he knew he was dropping to his knees by Clint’s side.

Deep gouges were clawed into the archer’s armour, bleeding sluggishly. The kevlar had been completely ripped away from his shoulder, revealing the mangled flesh and deep puncture wounds beneath.

Bucky’s body acted on autopilot, straddling the archer as he pulled bandages from his vest. The rest of him retreated screaming into the back of his mind. The gauze he pressed to the archer’s shoulder was soaked through in seconds. Sam was there in the next breath, adding his own hands on top of Bucky’s as he yelled into his comms for Strange.

There was so much blood. It was spreading out from underneath Clint and the dead creature both. An ever expanding pool that lapped closer and closer to Bucky and Sam’s boots. The wolf’s blood was black as pitch and sticky like molasses. It coated Clint in large splatters, matting his hair unrecognizable. “Why does everything always have to be sticky?” he heard the archer mutter weakly

“Hey!” Bucky cried, panic gripping his chest as he watched Clint’s eyes flutter. “Barton, stay awake, you hear me?”

Clint’s eyes snapped open. Bucky had never noticed how blue they were before. “Hey, I know you,” said Clint in surprise. “Bucky with the good hair,” he chuckled with a bloody toothed smile. The laugh quickly turned into a cough. The sound rasped from deep in the archer’s chest as more red splattered across his lips.

“Shut up,” Bucky snapped. “Just shut up and stay awake.”

“So bossy,” Clint muttered irately.

Time stood still around them. Bucky could hear sirens in the distance. The faint patter on the street as it started to rain. The wet rasping sound of Clint’s breathing. He’s missed the wolf’s fucking heart. That wasn’t possible. He was the Howling Commandoes’ sniper, the fucking Winter Soldier. He didn’t just miss. But he had.

He’d _missed_.

“Gettin’…kinda hard t’…breathe here, guys,” the archer murmured around each hitching breath. Bucky wrenched his attention back to the blonde as another cough sent more blood bubbling out the corner’s of Clint’s mouth. Bucky’s own breath hitched as he caught sight of the other puncture wound to Clint’s side, just under his armpit.

“Where the fuck is Strange?” he snarled, whirling on Sam like it was his fault. Something flickered across Sam’s face that had Bucky’s stomach bottoming out. He’d seen that look before, back in France while trying to hold a man’s intestines inside his body. A lifetime ago. The medic that found them had given Bucky that same look.

“No,” he growled. That wasn’t going to happen. He’d already lost too much. He’d lost his arm, himself, Steve. No fucking way he was going to lose Clint too.

“Barton,” he snapped sharply, seeing the archer’s eyes flutter. Clint muttered something in what sounded like Russian, too low and garbled for Bucky to understand. “Clint. Keep your eyes open. Focus on me.”

“But…real’y…sleepy,” Clint slurred.

“I know,” Bucky soothed, blinking against the burning in his eyes. “I know but you have to stay awake a little longer.”

Clint didn’t seem to see him, even though he was looking right at him. Slowly, his gaze slide off Bucky’s shoulder, eyes dazed. A little crease appeared between his bloodstained eyebrows as something akin to wonder flickered across his face.

“ ‘Tasha?” he murmured.

“No. No, no, no,” Bucky panicked as ice wrapped around his chest and squeezed. “No….god, just.. just say with me, okay?” he begged. His vision was going blurry but it wasn’t anything compared to the ache in his chest. “Come on doll. Just stay with me.….please.”

Pounding footsteps and a sharp gasp had his head snapping up, reflexes going on the defensive. Wanda stood a few feet away, frozen and wide-eyed. Strange didn’t stop. Sam moved back and the doctor took his place, mindless of the bloodstains to his robes.

“Move your hands,” he ordered calmly, golden sparks gathering around his fingers. “Move!” he snapped when Bucky didn’t comply right away. Something that couldn’t be seen pressed against Bucky’s chest and shoved, hard. He went sprawling, sliding across the damp concrete . He scrambled to his feet, only to have Sam bodily stop him from getting any closer.

“There’s nothing you can do,” Sam hissed.

And there wasn’t.

Bucky could only watch as Strange made a series of gestures that sent golden bands of energy wrapping around Clint’s wounds. The bands tightened and Bucky flinched at the choked cry that dribbled from Clint’s lips. Then Strange got to his feet, one hand moving in wide circles. A spiral of sparks appeared, showered out around him and bouncing off the street.

“Wanda, if you wouldn’t mind,” he said as he opened a portal to what Bucky recognized as the Avenger’s infirmary. Red glittering energy appeared under Clint, carefully lifting him into the air as if on a stretcher. Together, with Clint hovering between them, they stepped through. As soon as they were on the other side, the portal collapsed in a shower of sparks.

Bucky hadn’t realized he’d even started to move until Sam was in front of him again. “I need you here,” he said gently, hand pressed against the middle of Bucky’s chest.

“Don’t touch me,” Bucky growled, shoving Sam aside.

He felt a hand wrap around his bicep and he was yanked sideways against Sam’s chest. “There’s nothing you can do,” Sam said again, voice soft but made of steel. Bucky idly wondered if he’d learned it from Steve or if the Air Force taught it special. “It’s out of our hands,” continued Sam. “We have the best medical staff in the world. There’s no one better than Dr. Cho, you know that. And Friday will update us as soon as they know something.”

Bucky’s jaw ached as he ground his teeth together. His was clenching his fists so tightly he wouldn’t be surprised if something in the artificial arm snapped. He was practically vibrating, every inch of himself focusing on not throwing Sam through the nearby storefront.

_“Barnes.”_

“Yeah,” he breathed through gritted teeth. The tension in his muscles gave way to trembling as some of the adrenaline began to wear off. His eyes stung, his chest ached and he still didn’t understand. “But ho—.”

“No buts,” Sam interrupted. “I need you here.”

He felt Sam squeeze his bicep and realized that he had been leaning against the other man like a support. Bucky nodded stiffly. “Good,” Sam sighed, scrubbing a weary hand down his face. “Watch the device until Strange or someone else from the Sanctuary can come deal with it. I’ll handle them,” he added with a nod to where a squad of police cars had just screeched to a halt.

Bucky nodded again, not trusting his voice. Sam clapped a hand on his shoulder briefly before moving away, speaking calmingly to the spooked officers who were staring slack jawed at the dead hybrids. Bucky swallowed thickly, feeling his fingernails bite into his flesh palm hard enough to draw blood.

_But how did he miss?_

  
************************

  
Clint floated in an inky blackness. Pinpricks of light and colour danced before his eyes, seeming so close yet so far away. He wasn’t sure how long he was there or if time even existed anymore. Then something gripped his shoulder.

“Not yet,” a voice murmured, so achingly familiar.

He tried to turn around, to say something, to tell her…but then a hard shove between his shoulder blades had his stomach bottoming out like he was falling. The stars disappeared as everything turned inside out.

The next thing he remembered was waking up in the Avenger’s medical wing, his last clear memory being of fur and teeth and pain. He glanced down at himself. He saw the massive swaths of bandages that covered him from clavicle to hips and promptly passed out again.

When Clint woke, it was in stages. The familiar foggy feeling of general anesthetic clung to the back of his eyes. He heard voices swirling around him. Felt his body ache with a dull fire. The cool rush of the good pain meds that flowed through his veins.

Dr. Cho’s face swam before his eyes at one point, reassuring him that by some miracle he still had all his extremities and internal organs, but with a few more scars for the collection. He’d been in surgery to repair a punctured lung and to address the internal bleeding. He’d need two more surgeries to repair the crush injuries to his shoulder and another session in the Cradle.

Clint thinks he thanked her because god bless doctors and nano-molecular whatnots saving his ass once again. He did remember asking about recovery time. That professional doctor look locked into place as she told him it was too soon to tell.

After she left he wrenched the blankets back in a near panic, finding his body still bandaged by that lightweight derma-plastic shit that was used in the Cradle. His chest was not as bad as he expected. Raised scars glared an angry red in their newness, running in three parallel lines down his chest. Smaller slashes danced across his abs and hips and a couple deeper pockmarks ran along his side. Those weren’t an issue. He could deal with scars. He already had plenty.

But his shoulder…

He couldn’t see any of his left shoulder or arm. It was wrapped in thick white gauze and strapped against his chest to keep it immobile. But he remember what it felt like when the hybrid’s jaws clamped down around it. The horrifying crunch that his shoulder blade and collarbone made. His own cries echoing alongside the growls.

No, no, no. He needed his shoulder, needed it like he needed his eyes. He couldn’t hold or draw a bow without it and without his bow, what was he?

He didn’t even realize he was starting to hyperventilate until the machines around him started shrieking. Someone gently grabbed his wrist and drew his hand away from where he’d been unconsciously picking at the bandages. Cold fingers that smelled vaguely of pennies brushed the hair back from his forehead.

His eyes burned and to his embarrassment, he felt tears course hot down his cheeks. Someone murmured something that sounded soothing, placing a small hand on his forehead. Red sparks danced across his vision and nothingness rolled over him like a wave.

 

When Clint woke from his second shoulder surgery, Bucky was there. The man sat stiffly in an uncomfortable looking plastic chair against the wall opposite to Clint’s bed. Clint tried to speak but nothing came out. Not even a squeak. He swallowed, his throat feeling like he’d gargled sand, and tried again.

“Hey,” he rasped.

Bucky’s head jerked up as it on a string, a wild look in his eye. As soon as he saw Clint awake, or at least mostly conscious, steel clamped down over his face and he walked out without a word.

Clint’s eyes burned and his throat closed up but he couldn’t dwell on the confusing rejection because then Wanda was there, fussing over and scolding him for being an idiot in equal measure.

Over the next few weeks, he had a steady trickle of visitors. Wanda was there more often than not, reading aloud or entertaining him by doing her mental exercises that often involved floating various objects around his head. Sam dropped in only briefly, giving him the update that the hybrids had been a distraction as they’d suspected. They, whoever they were, had hit the Sanctuary at the same time. Nothing was taken and only the bad guys got hurt but there was still a huge mess to clean up.

Bucky was noticeably absent through it all.

It hurt because Clint had thought they’d been getting closer. He wasn’t holding out for anything more than friendship. He knew the reputation Bucky Barnes had had back in the forties. If there was ever a man that screamed straight, it was him. But it was nice to have someone he could subject his cooking experiments to and banter with again. To simply inhabit the same space. He hadn’t had that for a long time. He had thought they were friends.

Guess he’d been wrong.

A horrific thought occurred to him somewhere after the three week mark of being confined to his hospital bed. He didn’t remember much after getting attacked but pain and the smell of blood and Bucky’s bright blue eyes.

To say Clint was a little infatuated with the dark haired man would be an understatement because damnit, the man’s shoulders were incredible. And his laugh and his lopsided smirks and his hands. Clint always did have a thing for nice hands.

He was never going to act on it, but Bucky didn’t know that. What if Clint had said something stupid in his delirium? What if he’d said something that gave himself away? What if Bucky had been holding out on whatever homophobic tendencies people of his generation tended to cling to? But if he hated Clint now, then why had he been sitting with him after the last surgery?

All the questions made Clint’s head hurt and he gladly let the morphine pull him back under so he didn’t have to think anymore.

The day they took the bandages off, Clint practically broke down into tears. His tattoo had somehow survived, which was a sliver of good news. The top of the samurai’s helmet had gotten a little mangled but other than that it looked fine. He wouldn’t have cared that much if it had been ruined. Anyways, the important part was further down on the inside of his elbow.

It wasn’t even the mass of scars that crisscrossed his shoulder and clavicle or the raised round marks that dotted down his shoulder blade and across his ribs under his arm where teeth had puncture through the kevlar. The Cradle could only do so much with such prolific damage.

It was the way his whole shoulder slumped uselessly, muscles twitching as nerve endings tried to fire but got confused. He knew a lot of the loss off mass was just from muscles having shut down due to the trauma. He’d just need to work at reactivating them, reminding them what their jobs were. Regardless of that knowledge, his whole arm still felt dead and it scared the shit out of him.

His arm had to be kept immobile for another six weeks, he’d been told. It was strapped to his chest in a snug-fitted sling. Being damn close to ambidextrous had never served him better but there was the nagging fear in the back of his head that he’d never pick up a bow again. And then he’d be well and truly useless.

He had changed into the soft sweats and hoody Wanda had dropped off and was drumming his fingers against the covers waiting to be officially discharged when Sam came in. “Hey man,” Clint called out. Sam stood in front of him, arms crossed over his chest looking as pissed off as Sam ever did. “What?” Clint asked warily.

“Anything to say for yourself?” Sam asked mildly.

Clint felt blindsided by what could only be described as an attack. “I’m sorry a giant wolf used me as it’s personal chew toy?” he snarked, feeling far too tired and sorry for himself to deal with this shit. He was also in a lot of pain as they had been weaning him off the hard stuff over the last couple days. But apparently, he wasn’t going to get any pity points. Sam’s eyes narrowed, teeth set on edge.

“You were showboating,” stated Sam.

“No, I wasn’t,” Clint tried to protest.

“Yes, you were,” interrupted Sam. “You could have shot the first hybrid as soon as you saw it but you didn’t. Maybe if you hadn’t been showing off, you’d have noticed the second one in time.”

“No, I…Sam, the thing was behind a car!”

“And I’ve seen you hit a light switch through a port window from a helicopter,” Sam snapped, not giving him an inch. “Come on, man. I saw the traffic cam footage. You didn’t take the easy shot. Instead, you chose to be cute and almost got yourself killed. Now you may not give a shit about yourself but it just so happens that there are other people who do and—are you even listening to me?”

Clint wasn’t. Or at least he was but a part of him always shut down when he was getting a dressing down. It was a defence mechanism left over from childhood, something he’d never been quite able to shake. And damn did Sam learn a thing or to from Steve. No one but Phil had ever made Clint feel more ashamed than Steve Rogers but Sam was coming in at a close third.

And it was all made so much worse by the fact that Sam was right.

“I hear you,” he said quietly, staring down at his boots. He had been showing off. Not precisely on purpose but he’d been reckless. The only reason he wasn’t three quarters into a bottle of tequila right now was because no one else had gotten hurt. He had taken the fall for his mistake and he could live with that. “I’m sorry,” he added. It took every once of stubborn willpower he had not to tack on a ‘sir’ to the end of it.

Apparently that wasn’t what Sam wanted to hear. “Christ, I don’t want you to be sorry,” he snapped, looking pained.

“I get it, okay?” Clint interrupted stiffly. His eyes were prickling in the corners and the floor was going wobbly. He really didn’t wanna cry in front of his boss. Damn the good meds making him all soggy and off kilter. “Can we save the rest of the scolding for later? Please.”

He felt more than heard Sam take a breath. “Fuck. I messed this all up,” Sam huffed. “I just…damn it Clint, you scared the shit out of us.” That brought Clint’s gaze up from his boots. Sam’s face looked pinched, a few cracks starting to appear in his professional facade. “We thought we lost you,” he exclaimed. “Wanda was beside herself. I haven’t seen Barnes like that since we lost Steve and—.” He cut himself off, eyes looking suspiciously over-bright.

“I’m sorry,” Clint whispered again, not knowing what else to say.

A hand settled on his good shoulder at the base of his neck. “Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid like that again,” Sam asked. Clint read the underlying tremor in the man’s voice, knowing what he was saying but not putting into words. He nodded stiffly, not trusting his own voice. The hand on his neck squeezed again and then disappeared.

“Ready to get outta here?” Sam asked.

Clint scrubbed his good hand over his face, feeling achey all over. “Hell yeah,” he said with a sniff. Sam chuckled gently and offered a helping hand.

 

  
“On your six, Barnes,” Clint called into the headset as the security camera showed the agent sneaking up behind the soldier’s perch. The bank of monitors showed the majority of the team as they weeded out a HYDRA cell in Belarus.

Bucky didn’t reply. He just turned and calmly shot the agent in the head. Clint managed not to flinch. Not from the violence of it but from the cool detached way the dark haired man seemed to be operating these days.

The rest of the mission went smoothly and was wrapped up quickly. As soon as the team was back on the jet and headed home, Clint took of his headset and headed out of the command centre. “Range,” he asked hopefully as he stepped into the elevator.

The doors stayed open and Clint stifled a sigh. “Come on, I’m not gonna do anything stupid,” he grumbled. The last time he'd snuck down to the range against medical advise, he’d landed back in medical for the night. He hadn’t even been using his bow. Couldn’t with his arm in a sling. Apparently even knives put too much strain on healing bones and muscles.

After that FRIDAY had refused to close the elevator doors until he named a different location. It was a dance they’d been doing for the last two weeks and Clint was over it.

“Friiidaaay,” he pleaded, aware of how whiny he sounded and not really caring. Finally, the doors closed. His celebration was short-lived as the elevator opened, not into the range, but into the communal floor. “Harpy,” he muttered under his breath.

If FRIDAY was offended, she didn’t show it. Clint muttered something else unflattering under his breath as he stomped into the kitchen. He moved automatically towards the coffee machine but stopped himself. He really wanted to try and sleep tonight. He hadn’t been of getting much of that lately. Too many dreams of teeth and fur and blue. And as always, the colour blue.

He settled for one of Bruce’s sleepy teas, knowing the man wouldn’t mind if he found a bag or two missing. It was only mid afternoon but his sleep schedule was already fucked up so taking a nap wasn’t like it was going to make anything worse.

He drank the tea, trying and failing not to make a face at the bitter aftertastes. He took himself over to the couches, sprawling carefully across the longest one. He cued up Blue Planet, closed his eyes, and let facts about sharks just wash over him into he fell asleep.

Clint woke up to the elevator doors opening. He blinked, confused as to where he was. He wrenched himself into sitting as a flush of adrenaline flooded his system. He grimaced as his shoulder ached in protest to the less than ideal sleeping arrangements. His head felt foggy and his eyes stung but he’d actually slept so that was something.

Heavy boots on polished hardwood made Clint turn. His ribs squeezed around his lungs as he saw Bucky standing there halfway between the elevator and the fridge like he hadn’t noticed Clint until he was too far into the room. He was still in his gear, vibranium arm reflecting the late sun. There was a bruise across his jaw that was already fading and blood matted into the hair across his temple.   
  
“Hey,” Clint said softly, voice low and hoarse with sleep.

“Hey,” Bucky replied. He looked like he almost wanted to say something else but then just turned and walked stiffly to the fridge. He pulled out one of those green smoothies Stark used to make everyone post missions. It had become tradition and one that had stuck even so many years after the fight with Thanos.

Clint swallowed thickly. “I never apologized for tasing you back in Japan,” he said, grasping for something to say to keep Bucky in the room; maybe get him to talk. They still hadn’t talked since Clint got injured.

Bucky paused, eyes flicking sharply over to where Clint was sitting. “Widow bites,” Clint explained softly. He’d started using them shortly after Nat died. It was his own fucked up way of keeping a little piece of her close and he said just that. “They, uh, they pack a nasty punch,” he continued, hoping to be able to crack that emotionless mask Bucky had been wearing these days. “I know you and electricity aren’t the best of buds so…I’m sorry I did that.”

Whatever Clint had been hoping to see didn’t happen. If anything, more steel flooded into Bucky’s eyes like he was reinforcing his emotional walls. “It’s fine,” he said gruffly. Then he turned towards the elevator without another word.

“You didn’t miss.”

Bucky froze so suddenly it was like someone had grabbed the back of his tac vest and yanked. “The hybrid’s anatomy was all messed up. Heart wasn’t in the right place,” Clint elaborated because the first thing he’d done once Dr. Cho had discharged him was go down to the labs and find out. “You didn’t miss.”

Bucky’s head twitched like he’d been slapped and the metal hand not holding the drink clenched into a fist. Tension shivered across the man’s shoulders and for a moment Clint thought Bucky would stay. But he didn’t. He just stalked to the elevators and never once looked back.

 

 

Clint didn’t sleep that night. He lay flat out on his bed for a while but his shoulder was aching and his brain just wouldn’t shut off. So he finally admitted defeat and shuffled into the kitchen. He dozed a bit, the tv playing multicoloured fireworks under his eyelids. But even the melodic tones of David Attenborough couldn’t help lull him to sleep tonight so he changed it to a Predator marathon and made himself toast.

It was half past three in the morning when FRIDAY came in over the intercom. “Apologies, Agent Barton, but I believe your assistance is required,” she said politely.

“What is it, Friday?”

“It’s Sergeant Barnes.”

Clint was halfway to the elevator before he even realize he’d stood up. “What’s happened?” he asked as the doors closed and the floor under his bare feet began to vibrate softly.

“I believe Sergeant Barnes is having a dissociative episode,” the AI explained.

“But why me? Why didn’t you call Sam?” he couldn’t help ask as he stepped out into the suite. He couldn’t imagine that he’d be the right choice to help right now, considering Bucky hadn’t wanted anything to do with him. He tried not to sound bitter because that wasn’t fair to anyone involved. He think he managed it.

“She did.”

The low voice startled Clint. His head whipped around, catching sight of Sam sitting at the breakfast bar. Clint crossed into the kitchen, jaw clenching as he caught sight of the split lip and bloody nose the man was sporting. “She called me first,” the man elaborated. “And he damn near put my head through the wall.”

“Shit,” Clint muttered.

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “He hasn’t had an episode this bad since…well, ever.” He scrubbed a hand down his face, wincing as his fingers brushed over his tender nose. “I had his therapist on the phone for half an hour but he couldn’t talk him out of it either.”

“So why me?”

Sam snorted rudely. “Come on Clint, you’re not that thick. And neither am I. I’ve seen the way you look at him.” Clint flushed, staring pointedly at his toes. He really thought he’d been more careful. But subtle had never been his forte, ask anyone. “And I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” Sam added, yanking Clint’s gaze up like his head was on a string.

“Wh—oh come on, Wilson.”

“I’m serious,” Sam interrupted. “I think if anyone can get through to him in this state, it’ll be you.”

“That’s putting a lot of faith in your gaydar, man,” Clint snapped. “I mean, next you’ll be saying Captain America himself was—.”

“Naw, Steve was straighter than a flagpole,” Sam drawled, once again interrupting. “But Barnes? There was something different about him after you came back. He was lighter, happier. So were you.” Clint swallowed around the lump in his throat. The rest of his denials got stuck against the back of his teeth. The knowing look in Sam’s eye wasn’t helping either. “He’s in the bedroom. Just…be careful,” he added as Clint stepped towards the hallway. “Don’t crowd him. No sudden movements or loud noises.”

“Yeah, I got it,” Clint replied quietly because he knew exactly what it felt like to view everyone around you as a threat. To be scared they were going to hurt you or worse, you wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from hurting them.

He found Bucky on the floor. He’d shoved himself into the corner opposite the bed, hands fisted in his hair and face pressed against his forearms. “Hey man,” Clint said softly, rounding the bed quietly. Bucky flinched away so violently his head cracked against the wall.

“Easy,” Clint murmured, stopping in his tracks. It hurt to see such a massive man cowering like a beaten dog, murmuring brokenly and far too quietly for Clint to understand. He lowered himself slowly onto the plush carpet, until he was sitting crosslegged with his back against the bed. “Easy, I’m not gonna get any closer I promise,” he soothed.

Bucky didn’t say anything but Clint could see he was shaking. Fine tremors were rippling through his muscles. He couldn’t begin to guess what the man was reliving right now. It could be anything from when he’d first been capture by HYDRA during the war to literally anything during his time as the Winter Soldier.

“I ever tell you I was in a circus?” Clint asked, keeping his voice low and gentle. Bucky didn’t reply but Clint wasn’t expecting him too. So he talked. If there was one thing Clint could do, it was talk.

He talked until his throat was dry from it and then kept going. He told Bucky how he joined the circus and how he took up archery after seeing the Greek Goddess Artemis, whose real name was Libby, bend in half and shoot a bow with her feet. He told him how he got press-ganged into SHIELD because it was either that or life imprisonment on the Raft. He talked about the first time he met Natasha. He kept talking until the tension started to uncurl from Bucky’s shoulders and the larger man was more or less slumped against the wall.

He watched the brunette blink heavily, as if his eyelids had lead behind them. Sluggishly, his eyes slowly tracked across the room, landing on Clint. Recognition flickered through those icy blue eyes before Bucky looked away.

“Get out,” he whispered.

Clint took a slow deep breath. He could see the muscles in Bucky’s jaw working overtime. The man’s fingers were shaking as they dug into the tops of his thighs. His toes gripped the carpet like the floor might fall out from underneath them. He might be aware of his surroundings now but that didn’t mean he was okay. “No,” he said simply.

“Barton, get the fuck out,” Bucky growled, eyes flashing. It should have been menacing but the end of it got choked and it just sounded desperate. Clint had a feeling the man was hanging onto his composing with tooth and nail. That he was mere moments from shaking apart.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he replied quietly.

Bucky made a choked sound and abruptly turned away. “Don’t say that,” he breathed.

“Why not?” Clint murmured. Bucky just shook his head, lips twisting bitterly. His knees were hugged tight to his chest like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. The room was quiet save for the hitching rasp of Bucky’s breath. Even with the deafening silence, Clint almost missed the man’s reply, whispered quietly to the wallpaper.

“Might believe it.”

Goddamn threes.

Slowly, Clint eased himself up onto his knees. Words wouldn’t suffice anymore. Even if Clint could find the right ones, Bucky wouldn’t believe them. Because sometimes only actions could speak loud enough. Carefully he closed the distance until he was a mere arms length away from the other man. He sat cross legged, letting his strapped arm rest against his thigh. Then he rested his head on the wall and waited.

Something flickered through Bucky’s eyes before he screwed them shut and ground his forehead against the wall. Clint shifted just enough so his foot brushed against the outside of Bucky’s ankle. The brunette immediately flinched from the touch but Clint didn’t push it. Before long he relaxed enough that Clint felt the man’s shin press against the top of his foot. It was a barely-there pressure, but it was something. And even though his hips started protesting the position after a while, Clint didn’t move.

He must have fallen asleep. The next thing, he was waking up horizontal. Light was leaking in from behind the blinds. A pillow was under his head and a blanket across his legs. He could smell coffee. Bucky was nowhere to be seen.  
Wincing as his stiff muscles protested the less than ideal sleeping conditions, he got himself up and trudged slowly into the kitchen. Sam was gone. The coffee machine was chortling away on the kitchen counter. Clint thought he was alone until he caught sight of a figure silhouetted against the rising sun.

Bucky didn’t so much as twitch as Clint sat down next to him with two steaming mugs in hand. Clint sat with his back against the glass so he could face the brunette. Without a word he set one mug on the hardwood between them, managing to only spill a little of the scalding liquid over his fingers in the process. Being one handed sucked.

Clint’s coffee was almost finished when Bucky finally picked up his with stiff fingers. He didn’t drink it. Just held it in his lap like it was the only thing keeping his hands from shaking. Clint knew the feeling.

“You’re always there.”

He’d gotten used to Bucky’s soft confessions over the months. Like a whisper, words would be breathed into existence like saying them any louder would make them too real. It was something in the tone too, so unusually hesitant and gentle like testing thin ice to see if it will hold your weight. Like sipping soup and expecting it to burn your tongue.

_“You look like shit.”_

_“I didn’t get to say goodbye.”_

_“I don’t know what to do now.”_

_“Just stay with me….please.”_

He was used to them now and yet something about this one was different. It felt heavy, for all the words were spoken lightly. There was a weight to them, like they were more important than they seemed.

Bucky’s gaze was pointedly fixed out the window, like if he could pretend Clint wasn’t there it would be easier to say whatever words were scratching at his throat. “Like whenever I come back from a mission you’re always there. I keep expecting it to end, you know? Like one day I’ll come back and you won’t be there. That you’l finally realize I’m not worth the time.”

“Buck—.”

“Just let me finish,” the brunette interrupted sharply, something pained pinching his face tight. Clint blinked, realizing just how difficult it was for the younger man to force the words out. That whatever this was, it was far more important that Clint could have imagined.

“It was nice,” Bucky continued. “And I let myself believe that maybe it could last. And then that thing…when it…” Here his throat rolled and he swallowed, a twitching motion flickering through his flesh and blood hand. “You almost died and it would have been all my fault.”

“I told you—,” Clint started because he couldn’t let Bucky spiral down that path.

“I know, the heart. You said,” the other man interrupted again. “Jesus, you really can’t keep your mouth shut for two seconds, can you?” The words might have been harsh but the way they were said wasn’t. If Clint didn’t know better, it was almost fond. Bucky shook his head, lips twisting into a rueful smirk. “It’s one of the things I love about you.”

Clint blinked. “W..what?” he breathed because he’d obviously misheard. That’s all it was. His hearing was a bit fucked after all, one too many times standing too hear to some sort of explosion or gunshot. Concussive sounds are hell on the eardrums after all and—

“I love you.”

_Three goddamn words._

Clint opened his mouth but nothing happened. A small part of his addled brain idly wondered if this is what fish feel like out of water. He mentally kicked himself as something resigned flickered across Bucky’s face, shutting it down. “It’s fine,” the man started, clearly his throat self-consciously. “I don’t expect you to feel th—.”

“Just shut up,” Clint breathed, interrupted with three words of his own. Possibly less poetic but no less impactful. Bucky’s jaw clicked shut instantly. His eyes were still guarded but now there were other things flickering around the corners. Wary hesitation, yes. Disbelief, maybe. And hope. Against all odds and against all hurts, hope.

Clint carefully set his mug down and reached across the narrow space between them. Slowly, giving the former sniper enough time to anticipate the touch, he placed his fingers lightly over Bucky’s wrist. “I…,” he swallowed. “I just never thought you’d feel the same.”

The tension in Bucky’s body was almost palpable. The hope was now warring for dominance with the disbelief, the wary hesitation now shoved aside. Clint swallowed, feeling like he was eating pins and needles. “Look, I’m…,” he paused, licking his lips before pushing on through one of the most difficult and yet necessary confessions he’d ever had.

“I’m not okay. I’m six ways to Sunday kinds of fucked up. I’m just really good at hiding it. But if we do this, you’re gonna see it all.” Bucky looked like he wanted to say something so Clint blundered forward because he knew if he got interrupted, he’d never have the courage to finish. “Sometimes I wake up and don’t know where I am,” he blurted out, fingers unconsciously tightening on Bucky’s wrist. “I always know when a storm’s coming because of some impressive scarring on my back I got from warlord in the Congo and I still can’t talk about it so please don’t ask.

“You’ll see the nightmares. The flashbacks, the mood swings. The days I flay my fingers raw at the range because it’s the only way I know how to cope. And there’s one particular shade of blue I cannot be around. That you can ask me about. And maybe one day I’ll even tell you.”

He paused for breath, sucking back a gasp of oxygen like it was going out of style. “Because if you want me, you gotta know that I come with a lotta fucked up baggage.” There, he’d said it all. There was more, of course. There would always be more but for now, this was enough. It was certainly enough to scare off any sane person.

Porcelain clicked against hardwood as Bucky placed his mug on the ground, his eyes never leaving Clint’s. Not for the first time the archer found himself admiring how blue they were. Icy and brilliant, ringed darker with grey flecks. Nothing even close to the acidic blue that clouded his mind when it was cold and dark outside.

“Sometimes I wake up and I don’t know when I am,” Bucky whispered as he very carefully placed his vibranium hand over Clint’s. “Sometimes I forget my name. For no reason. I just forget. I never remember my nightmares but that doesn’t stop me from sweating through the sheets more nights than not. I still get phantom pains in my shoulder. Sometimes it gets so bad, it’s all I can do not to scream. There’s a reason why I hate apple juice and I can’t remember what it is but something tells me I don’t want to.

“And I remember everything,” he whispered, something haunted clouding over his eyes. “Everything they did to me. Everything they made me do. And most days I can deal with it but sometimes…sometimes I wish Steve never found me. Because they’d always make me forget and remember is so fucking hard.”

Against popular opinion, Clint actually did know when to keep his mouth shut. This was one of those moments. It didn’t stop him from tightening his grip on Bucky’s wrist, thumb brushing against the pulse point in what he hoped was comforting. It was a visible struggle for Bucky to get his voice back. “So you say you’ve got baggage?” he finished with a wry twist of his lips. “Pal, I’ve got six plus to your couple decades of fucked up.”

Clint chuckled, a breathy snort that helped to break the heavy weight the conversation had settled over them. They sat there quietly until he couldn’t take the silence anymore. “So,” he said, clearing his throat. “What now?”

“Can I kiss you?” Bucky asked.

He said it in that simple and straightforward way of his that made Clint want to bend over backwards to give him the world. God, he was so far gone. Natasha would be so disappointed but at the same time would secretly high five him later once they were alone. “Knock yourself out soldier,” his traitor mouth replied. Bucky’s eye twitched and Clint could have kicked himself. “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean—,”

“It’s okay,” Bucky said softly. “Somehow it’s okay when you say it.” Metal fingers brushed across Clint’s cheekbone, slipping around to cup the nape of his neck. So lightly, carefully. Like Bucky was scared to hurt him. It was the same when they finally kissed.

Bucky’s lips bushed his in an almost-there touch. Clint let him set the pace and after a moment, he learned first hand that all those steamy stories of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes from the 1940s were well founded.

 

*********************

  
Bucky woke slowly, gently. It was a luxury he wasn’t used to. Awareness slowly flooded behind his still-closed eyelids. Birdsong twittered outside the window. Shadows danced and he opened his eyes to see the curtains fluttering in the breeze from the open window. The light was soft, the dove grey of pre-dawn.

He didn’t have to roll over to know the other side of the bed was empty. There was a coolness behind him. The lack of weight on the mattress. The air still without the soft disruption of someone else breathing.

He shrugged on a sweater and padded downstairs softly, ignoring the twinges in his shoulder and artificial elbow. He often woke up with pain, flickers of pain in a limb that wasn’t there anymore. Usually if he ignored them, they went away. Usually.

The third and fourth stair creaked softly underfoot, something Clint refused to fix. Bucky understood. Some habits died hard and a squeaky stair was an excellent early warning system against intruders.

The farmhouse was quiet. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, streaming light across the rooms and making the warm wood glow golden. The kitchen was also empty but there was coffee still warm in the pot and the backdoor was unlocked.

He found Clint down by the pond, sitting on the tree swing that hung near its backs by a sturdy and ancient oak tree. The archer didn’t turn around but Bucky made enough noise that he wasn’t startled. He didn’t say anything as the brunette came to a stop directly behind him, just held up his half empty mug in offering.

Bucky took a sip, wincing a little at the excessive sweetness of it. “Did you sleep?” he asked softly, knowing that the archer was often driven out of bed by things he couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about. He carded fingers through the archer’s shaggy locks. The man had kept the sides shaved, leaving the top to grow long. It was usually swept back, made crunchy with product. Early mornings saw the hair soft as silk. Bucky never could resist carding his fingers through it. Clint hummed, leaning back against Bucky’s chest like a cat leaning into a scratch.

“Solid six hours,” he replied, the smile showing through his words even though Bucky couldn’t see his face. “Wanted to see the sun rise. You looked so peaceful. Didn’t wanna bug you.” Bucky smiled, crowding closer against Clint’s back as he passed the coffee back.

It had been almost a year since Clint had been attacked. He was out of the sling and on the cusp of being cleared for active duty again. Bucky had been there when Clint first picked up a bow again. Muscles atrophy if they’re not used. Skills get rusty so Bucky hadn’t been surprised when Clint’s first shot hadn’t even hit the target. It went wide and imbedded itself into the wall of the archery lane.

Clint hadn’t taken it so well. It was what prompted them coming out to the farmhouse three weeks ago. To get away from the others and the pressure on Clint to get his skills back. Self inflicted pressure, but smothering nonetheless. He still hadn’t touched a bow since they’d arrived and Bucky was desperate to fix it.

The sun finally crested the hills, sending sharp spikes of light across the fields. It sparkled off the water of the pond, dazzling their eyes like a thousand diamonds. Bucky ducked his head, pressing his lips against the top of Clint’s head. “Will you teach me to shoot?” he asked into dark blond hair.

He felt Clint go stiff underneath him. “Pretty sure you’ve already got all the army’s sharpshooting commendations in existence,” the archer drawled, tone lazy against the tension of his shoulders.

“That’s not what I meant,” Bucky murmured.

“I know,” was the immediate reply.

Bucky stifled a sigh. Sometimes Clint was too stubborn for his own good. But he could be stubborn too. “You ever fall off your bike as a kid?”

“Never had a bike.”

“Principle is the same,” he retorted, shoving the swing just enough to slosh the coffee in Clint’s mug. “What do you do when you fall off your bike?” Clint huffed but didn’t reply beyond butting his head back against Bucky’s shoulder. In retaliation Bucky spun the swing around, holding the ropes to keep Clint facing him.

“What, you gonna make me say it?” the archer drawled, lips smirking but eyes guarded. Bucky slide his hands down the ropes as he crouched. His hands gripped the seat, bracketing Clint’s hips with his forearms. “Please don’t patronize me,” the archer warned.

“I’m not. I promise I’m not,” Bucky insisted. Clint huffed a sigh, scrubbing both hands down his face. Bucky frowned, until he found the coffee mug not held between Clint’s bare feet. He set it aside with an eye roll. Clint sniffed, crossing his arms over his chest protectively. He was nibbling at his lower lip again, a nervous habit Bucky had noticed.

“What if it never comes back?” the archer asked in a small voice. “What if I’m never as good? What if—.” Bucky cut Clint off by hooking his fingers through Clint’s belt loops and tugging the shorter man to his feet.

“Only one way to find out.”

 

  
Two hours later and the joining of Bucky’s left shoulder to the vibranium was aching. His fingers hurt, which was a new feeling. But the look of hard determination on Clint’s face as he marched his arrows from the outside of the target to the bullseye was worth it. It almost looked like an intentional pattern but Bucky could see the strain in Clint’s muscles, the tight lipped concentration.

Finally after Clint had a cluster of arrows dead in the black, Bucky called it quits. Clint was sweaty and clearly favouring his shoulder but there was a light back in his eye that hadn’t been there before. He wouldn’t even let Bucky cook, just waved him off to a shower as he started upending the kitchen.

Remnants of breakfast cleared away, they went out to the back porch and enjoyed the day. Bucky sat between Clint’s legs as the archer carded his fingers through his hair. Seemed like it was a pastime they both enjoyed. Bucky’s hair and been growing out again. This time it curled artfully past his ears, still shorter on the sides but far less severe than his previous cut. Bucky shifted, the ache in his shoulder now radiating up into his neck.

A sharp stab struck down his arm light lightening and he couldn’t stop the hitch in his breath. He felt Clint’s hands still against his scalp. “Shoulder bugging you?” the archer asked softly. Bucky hummed, rolling his shoulder.

A firm grip wrapped around his wrist, bringing his forearm up to rest atop Clint’s knee. Fingers pressed gently into the scar tissue up under his rotator cuff and Bucky flinched. The fingers immediately disappeared. “Sorry,” Clint murmured. “I don’t have to but it might help.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky said quickly. Too quickly.

“You sure?”

“Like you said, it might help,” he said with finality. He swallowed down whatever had lodge in his throat as Clint’s hands settled around his shoulder again. A lotta people had put their hands there. Almost all of them had done it to cause pain. Bucky couldn’t stop the sharp breath that hissed between his teeth.

“Just breathe,” Clint murmured as his fingered massaged up the joining of metal to flesh. “Did I ever tell you about the time I saved a dog from the mafia?” The man kept talking, distracting Bucky until the sharp pains gave way to the dull ache of muscles used in ways they weren’t used to. And then eventually even that ache went away.

“Thanks,” he said as Clint’s hands settled on his shoulders. He leaned his head back on the archer’s thigh, letting Clint play with his hair as the watched the clouds gather on the horizon.

Eventually the clouds had obscured any lingering blue sky. The air had grown colder, the wind picking up. Clint finally dragged them both inside, stating that a storm was coming. Scars don’t lie. The first lightening strikes hit just as they were finishing dinner and so of course Clint dragged him back outside to watch the lightening dance across the darkening sky.

It was painfully domestic. Sweet even. Something Bucky never thought he’d get to have. He had convinced himself that he didn’t deserve it. Not after everything he’d done. He still didn’t think he did but staring down at the top of the archer’s sandy hair, sprawled half across his chest as they lay in bed, it was hard not to want it.

“You’re thinking too loud,” the archer murmured, words muffled against Bucky’s chest.

“Sorry,” he breathed.

Clint twisted, propping his chin up on Bucky’s sternum. His hair was wild, sticking up in all directions. “What’s going on behind those baby blues?” he murmured with a slow smile. Bucky ran his hands over Clint’s broad shoulders, stalling for time. “You’re stalling,” Clint drawled. Damnit. Perceptive bastard.

“You’re not freaking out are you?” Clint chuckled. When Bucky didn’t say anything, his eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. “Are you freaking out? You’re freaking out.”

“A little,” Bucky breathed, his chest suddenly feeling very heavy. The weight on his chest disappeared in an instant and Clint was suddenly sitting crosslegged next to his hip. Close, but far enough away to give Bucky space so he didn’t feel crowded. They’d learned that one fast. “Not like that,” Bucky groaned, sitting up against the headboard. “I’m fine, I’m just…I don’t know.”

“I get it,” Clint said quietly. “You have enough people tell you that you don’t deserve something, you start to believe them.” Bucky’s eyes flicked up to Clint’s and held. “My old man was like that,” the archer continued. Bucky blinked. It wasn’t like the archer to open up about his childhood. “Bastard was a mean drunk. Knocked me around a bit but mostly just liked to put me down with words. Tell me I’d never amount to nothing, stuff like that.”

Bucky’s breath hitched. It could have been a chuckle but they both knew better. The thought of Clint as a kid having to go through something like that was horrid. At least Bucky, with all his issues, could look back on the fractured memories with good feelings. It wasn’t always easy. There wasn’t always enough food for the table. But at least they’d loved each other. And for all his father drank too much, he’d never raise a hand to his family.

“It was a long time ago,” Clint soothed, correctly guessing where Bucky’s mind had gone. “Had enough people tell me I was worth it that I finally believed it.” Clint moved slowly, in that careful way he always did around Bucky. Somehow it never came off as patronizing. “And you James Buchanan Barnes,” he said as he straddled Bucky’s hips with a lazy smile.

“You’re worth it.”

Bucky had no words. Words didn’t seem like enough. Not for this. So instead he sat up and wrapped his arms around Clint’s middle. He felt the archer’s arms encircle him back. Lips brushed his temple and Bucky smiled as he tucked his face against the archer’s neck. Clint smelled like sandalwood and clean linen. Like coffee and rainstorms. Like cordite and cinnamon. Like sweat and sunshine and every other cheesy anecdote Bucky could think of.

Maybe the future would be so bad after all. Part of Bucky had envied Steve, being able to go back to his life like nothing had happened. He didn’t begrudge him that. All he ever wanted was for Steve to be happy, to live the life he should have had. Bucky wasn’t one for believing in destiny. The idea that there was a high power dictating his future was too much to handle, especially after everything he’d been through. But if he hadn’t been through it, lived through decades worth of pain, he’d never have gotten this.

Because in this moment, wrapped in the arms of a man he’d come to love more than he ever thought was possible, he was happy. He was calm and safe and as close to peace as he’d probably ever get.

He was home. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read and enjoyed and left comments! I really had fun writing this pairing so let me know if you'd like to see more/any prompts you'd like to see come to digital life. xx

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is my fairy dust! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I had this in my brain after watching Endgame and it wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it out.


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